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Comment by gaur | Hacker News Reader

> you can board early

I'd pay good money for the ability to exit the plane early after the flight is over. I really don't care about boarding early, especially if I'm not looking for bin space.

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> I'd pay good money for the ability to exit the plane early after the flight is over.

Apparently not good enough money, first class customers get that privilege. Beyond that, the crew is required to finish certain landing procedures before allowing customers to disembark off the plane.

Good point! Actually everything about airlines that inspires complaints, can be avoided by spending enough "good money" to fly e.g. NetJets instead.

The problem is that the amount of "good money" a consumer has to spend to get slightly better service is a lot. But for a business traveler with an expense account it is not a lot and can be expensed.

not just first class - but there are also "premium" seats in row 6, but most of those are quickly grabbed up by frequent flyers.

(i'm a frequent alaskan airlines flyer, and try to always sit in row 6, unless i'm upgraded).

> Apparently not good enough money, first class customers get that privilege.

Airlines like Southwest have no first class. And Southwest lets you pay for priority boarding, so it stands to reason they could cook up a scheme for letting people pay for priority exiting.

Pay for priority boarding and sit at the front of the plane?

But, unfortunately, no free drinks to be sloshed and passed out by the time wheels come up. So it's like first class without the raison d'être.

And of all the airlines that necessitate being drunk to cope, Southwest is fairly high on the list.

> southwest

right, so in other words, you're still flying the cheapest possible airline, yet claiming you'd pay good money for well-established privileges that are already available for good money on the open market on pretty much any non-budget carrier.

when it comes to luxury, you have to pay to play, and those who don't pay, don't play. end of story. you're competing with humans for space and time, it's going to be expensive if you want to be given special treatment.

I think you could take that another step forward and say Airline like Southwest have no class at all :)

Southwest gives you priority boarding (with open seating) for like $30 (if you ask for it at the gate). I opt for this a lot. You get a better seat, have to stand around for less time waiting to board, and get off the plane first. It's a great deal, I think.

I've never understood that. Boarding early and having to have the entire plane trudge past you with their luggage is just not pleasant.

Is there a reason airlines don't board from the back of the plane first? As a first class customer you are assured of your overhead bin space anyway and you would spend the least amount of time on the plane. You would be the last on and the first off. But this would actually be thinking outside the box, not something you would expect of this ridiculous industry. What's the last time an airline did anything innovative?

JetBlue boards coach from the back of the plane to the front. On flights with first class, they still board first.

That's a really interesting notion, but it seems impossible to accomplish. How do you make some passengers let others go first?

Charge people by the order in which they exit the plane. First person pays $100, second person pays $95, etc. So the first 20 people have an early exiting surcharge, and then everyone else is free to take their sweet time putting on their jackets and rearranging their suitcases whilst standing in the aisle.

This seems a little bit like kidnapping.

Let's say I decide to get up and leave the plane but not pay. What happens?

Right because we need yet another fee from the airlines.

What of no one wants to be first at that price?

Even the conventional airlines (e.g. American) already let you do this -- look for "Premium Economy" seats in the front of the aircraft.

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