Cost cutting

The economic crisis has reached all of us deeper than swine flue, I reckon. Just today, all the Rex staff is asked to dig deep into their creative storage portion of their brain and come up with 'radical and creative ideas' to get through these trying economic times.

A short dicussion with my colleagues ensued and we had a bit of hearty laughy time looking through some of other airlines' interesting ideas to cut costs online and I thought they might make you laugh today.

China Southern Airlines
They are urging customers to use the bathroom before boarding their flights, Reuters reports, citing a report from China's Xinhua news agency. The effort isn't part an effort to reduce the weight of fliers, but rather an attempt to reduce the amount of fuel it takes to power the flush of airline toilet at 30,000 feet. China Southern calculates that such a flush uses about a liter of fuel –- or the equivalent of about a quarter of a gallon. "The energy used in one flush is enough for an economical car to run at least 10 kilometers [about 6 miles]," China Southern Captain Liu Zhiyuan is quoted as saying by Xinhua.

RyanAir
They are looking at the possibility of getting passengers to carry their luggage all the way to the plane, cutting out the need for baggage handlers.

"We would say to passengers ... take your own bag down through airport security, leave it at the bottom of the steps, we put it in the hold and on arrival we deliver it to the aircraft steps and you take it with you," Chief Executive Michael O'Leary told a news conference yesterday.

How about revenue-generating ideas? Even wacky ones?

easyJet
EasyJet is investigating whether its pilots could become authorised to carry out weddings during flights. The plan would see the captain hand over to the co-pilot once airborne in order to officiate the wedding at the front of the plane.

The time-saving move would mean couples could marry while flying to their honeymoon destination.

Laughing aside, it is indeed a sobering thought that even a strong aviation giant such as SQ had to take serious steps in implementing 1 day unpaid AL per month for their pilots after grounding 17 aircrafts and cutting some 11% capacity this year.

Well, if we have reached the bottom of the valley, there is no where else to look except upwards. As long as you have a positive attitude, you can overcome any problems, I think.