other potential auctionables:
- omit stench of malfunctioning lavatory
- increase distance from screaming baby
- trade places with seat kicker
Why not?
Worth its’ weight in gold!
Headphones, loud music. Problem solved. Tested, works.
And once the permanent hearing loss kicks in, you won’t ever have to worry about it again!
Not that loud. Or not for that long.
Titrate the volume until the outside screaming problem is sufficiently backgrounded.
Wait, so people are getting to fly first class far more cheaply, and that’s class warfare? If it’s okay, I’ll save my rage for a meatier issue.
Air travel is a luxury. If you’re flying at all, you’re probably already on the wrong side of the class war.
So you propose, if you live say on a Pacific atoll, that you really don’t need anything but a voyaging canoe?
Preface: I am not arguing with you
For me to get to my house to my HQ office is a $180 round trip flight, and it takes ~3 hours total with checkin and whatnot.
A bus is $80, takes 12 hours each way, and i’d need a hotel room that costs ~$100.
Driving costs two tanks of gas each way, and each tank is $40. so $160, plus wear and tear on my car. the car trip takes 8.5 hours each way.
Honestly, traveling by car is the luxury. Air travel, unless you are a nozzle and insist on business class is more democratic. In a car i can’t work, so i can enjoy the scenery, listen to music, stop off the road and take pictures, and so on.
edit
oh yeah, and while i’m 6’3", i can curl into a ball in economy so small i could slip through the seats.
Correct, it isn’t.
Anyway I think this auction is a great idea!
Or in other words, what you need is a decent railway…
Fuck. Yes.
Have I mentioned I’ve been looking at cabooses to live in? 
It was good enough for their ancestors 
Cheap, quick, comfortable, and clean (environmentally) transportation for all would be great. Currently not possible, tho, and the accepted way to divvy up that limited resource is a market at the moment. Making that market a bit more efficient by adding in auctions for extra luxury seems fine. Being able to afford domestic airfare probably puts you in a better place than most people in the “first world”, and definitely in a much better place than most people in the world. Being able to afford international airfare shifts you up even further. I just dropped ~$3k flying myself and my son from NRT to SEA and back, and I know the privileged position that puts me in. Whinging about a small systemic change that might actually benefit more people in a system that overall is already pretty inequitable is lefty bouj BS. If you’re flying across oceans odds are you are one of the oppressors. Aviation isn’t class warfare. It’s class civil war if anything.
Flying domestically is actually cheaper than the bullet trains here in Japan. We do benefit from the competition, though, I think. Would be nice for highspeed rail to get developed in more places.
When I go from Chennai to Bangalore by train, the schedule is:
- Pack my bags as I like without worrying too much about weight restrictions
- Arrive about 20 minutes early (more to beat the traffic than anything else)
- Walk through a grand old station, board a train and sit back
- Work, read or chat with other passengers
- If it’s an overnight train, around 11, setup the bunk and go to sleep
- Or, if it’s a day-train, push the seat back and not crush the passenger behind me.
- Arrive at another station about 6 hours later, don’t wait for my luggage (because it’s beneath my seat), and I’m in the centre of the city.
Technically, the flight to Bangalore is only about 1 hour, but…
- You need to be at the airport an hour early
- Get frisked (though the CISF jawans who frisk you in Indian airports are much more professional than the TSA)
- Be packed into a metal tube (a small metal tube yet) for that 1 hour
- Upon landing, wait for luggage if you have checked anything in.
- Drive from outside the city to the centre through some of the world’s most insane traffic
Time spent: about 4 hours including travel to and from the station.
Cost difference: about twice as expensive.
The only problem is that trains are booked weeks in advance, so if it’s a visit on short notice, it’s difficult to get a berth…
I just looked at Amtrak’s site for a fare on a trip I’m planning for this summer. It’s more expensive than flying if I want to have even a little privacy.
I can deal with 4 hours in a plane with no private seating just fine. I can’t do that for a 20+ hour train trip. Also, I’d have to do at least 2 transfers on the rail trip, and I’d have to wait for about 10 hours in the station between the connection.
Derigible and rigid-airship travel seems more and more attractive.
citation please?
It may be cheaper but the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagoya is a hell of a lot more convenient than Haneda to Chubu airport
