The high price of gas has been affecting all of us… big and small… huge corporations and little ole you and me.  For you and I… we have to fill a 10 maybe 20 gallon gas tank at the most.  But imagine the hit if we had to fuel a few jet engines several times a day.  The cost could run into the tens of thousands of dollars… and possibly more.

Well this exuberant fuel cost is common place in the airline industry.  And of course they find ways to pass these costs down to the consumer.  $15 dollars to check your first bag, $25 for the second, $100 for bags 3, 4, and 5… $200 for number 6!!

But just recently Jet Blue tacked on yet another fee.

Anyone who flies knows how uncomfortable airline seats can be.  You don’t have enough room to stretch your legs, you are forced to rub elbows (literally) with your neighbor, the awkwardly shaped head rest exists only put a crook in your neck… just a miserable experience all around.  The only bit of comfort we get is a salty bag of peanuts (that’ll cost you about $2 or 3 bucks on some flights), a two ounce cup of soda, and a 3 by 4 inch barely fluffy pillow… a pillow that now costs $7 bucks on board Jet Blue flights!

$7 bucks for those scanty airplane pillows?  Yes, you heard it right… seven dollars! (ok well a blanket comes with it, but still…this nickel and diming is getting ridiculous) That equates to roughly two gallons of gas in my part of the world.

This new $7 pillow charge has gotten a few folks a bit annoyed.  And rightfully so… those skimpy pillows hardly help to prevent the crook in your neck.  But the thing I don’t get is who came up with this bright idea?

Of course charging seven dollars for a pillow is going to cause some bad press.  But didn’t Jet Blue’s PR folks realize that before they made this big announcement?

Don’t get me wrong… free enterprise is a beautiful thing.  I am all for businesses improving the bottom line.  But if I were the Jet Blue people, I would have went about it a different way.

Ok let’s say I am Jet Blue. Gas prices are killing me, so I need to figure a way to mitigate the losses.  After thinking of several ways, I pick the easiest… stick it to the consumer.  I do some calculating… 129 plus 10 divided by 19 squared, carry the three, take the natural log and round up to 7.  Alright so $7 is the magic number.  Now I gotta shift it to the customers.

So do I come right out and tell the customer something as preposterous as “I need $7 for that pillow, please Mr. Had A Long Day, Had One Too Many Drinks, Wife Is Sleeping Around, Kids Hate My Guts.”  No, I don’t say that… that might set someone off.

Or at the very least… Reporters start reporting, Bloggers start blogging, Bad PR starts rolling in… all about this $7 pillow fee.

What I would do is… slide it under the radar by jacking up the ticket price by $7.  Will anyone even notice that the $542 ticket is now $549… I seriously doubt it.  Then I would put a spin on it.  I would give every passenger a lovely airline pillow and blanket kit, free… courtesy of me, Jet Blue.  So you see, now I look like the good guy… is Delta or American Airlines giving away free pillows?… No.  But here at Jet Blue we do… and we do because we value our customers!

Problem solved… I got my seven dollars, you got your pillow, no bad press, plus a lil good press for giving away free pillows… and no one is the wiser to the whole plan.  No, it is not deceit, is it a play on words… marketing, PR, whatever you wanna call it.