The world is shrinking fast. But everything inside American Airlines (AAL) aircraft is shrinking faster. The company has recently been struggling with poor margins, just like its rivals, pounded by higher expenses. But fear not dear investors, there is a solution to every problem.
And that solution is – narrower toilets give wider margins! This quantum leap in discovery wasn’t made in a day but was the result of years of research and hard work. The initial spark of the discovery apparently happened when someone from the top management was using the airline loo a few years ago, when it was 34 inches wide. Now, that is more-than-double the width of two Apple (AAPL) MacBook Pros, which points to the fact that two people can easily fit into it.
What a sheer wastage of space! The extra space could be monetized by converting to a row of seats. And that’s exactly what they did. The loo was initially shrunk to 27 inches, and now to 24 inches. It’s true that an obese person might get stuck in it, but look at the silver lining – the company inspires people to lose weight. For god’s sake, stop eating all that junk food if you are ever planning to use the toilet while flying!
The two-foot restrooms are installed on its new Boeing 737-Max fleet. The flight attendants had revolted against the idea, travel bloggers had lambasted the company and consumer advocates had called it unfair. But obviously, none of them are businessmen. And it’s easy to criticize.
And, we are not done yet. Remember what Joker said? “If you are good at something, never do it for free.”
American Airlines is good at finding space out of tiny spaces. So expect smaller seats also going forward. The company is planning to reduce front-to-back seat length by two inches in some economy class flights. Once that is done, the airliner will apparently be able to carry 12 extra passengers! Of course, the overhead bins will become smaller, but think of the happy passengers and extra bucks.
Hopefully, the company will soon find a way to shrink the cockpit as well – a passenger can easily be accommodated in the co-pilot’s seat. Looking forward to flying in the cockpit someday!