US Airways is Happy That Nobody is Buying Drinks

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  susanncsdo09/23/08 Report as spam
  1

  RE: US Airways is Happy That Nobody is Buying Drinks

  Unless you have a medical condition or were just rescued
  from wandering the Sahara for weeks, there's no reason
  you shouldn't be able to endure a 1-2 hour flight without
  a beverage. Always seemed to me to be more trouble
  than it was worth. I think it's a great idea.

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  Nicholas Barnard09/23/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: US Airways is Happy That Nobody is Buying Drinks

  What I want to know when will they actually ditch the
  carts and just start doing the service on trays? Sure
  you'll still have the weight of the drinks, but you'll lose
  the weight of the cart itself.
  
  And while I'm at it why haven't airlines moved to
  fountain beverages? It always seemed to me that it
  would be more efficient both from a time perspective
  and from a weight perspective.
  
  Sure there is that whole pressurized CO2 thing that is
  an issue, but I'm sure that could be intelligently
  surmounted with good engineering.

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  brett snyder09/25/08 Report as spam
  3

  RE: US Airways is Happy That Nobody is Buying Drinks

  @Nicholas - That's a good question. It would make sense that if the number of drinks being served is close to zero, you'd think you'd want to get rid of the weight of those carts. I suppose you really don't need it.
  
  As for fountain drinks, I'd think that servicing them is the hardest part. It's easy to just board a pallet of drinks, but if you have to actually change out and service the drink machine, it would slow things down.

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  Nicholas Barnard09/25/08 Report as spam
  4

  RE: US Airways is Happy That Nobody is Buying Drinks

  The solution for the fountain drink thing is simple, make
  the whole thing removable, and put on two per plane.
  This way if one fails in flight you've got the other, and if
  it fails you just remove it and put a new one on. Just like
  tagging something INOP.
  
  I think the real savings is reducing or eliminating the
  catering runs. Plus the cost savings from buying syrup
  versus cans has to be quite huge..

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  brett snyder09/26/08 Report as spam
  5

  RE: US Airways is Happy That Nobody is Buying Drinks

  @Nicholas - Well, I think it's a safe bet that someone will try to tackle this if it can save some money. But I'm not sure how much it would save. If you have a fountain, you need to have a bunch of water in there to mix with the syrup. The cost savings could lie in the ability to avoid catering every flight, but that means you'll need to carry enough water for multiple flights and that's extra weight.