American Airlines: $8 for a blanket and pillow

[joeydb]

http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/2...s-on-american/

February 8, 2010, 12:44 pm

Passengers Must Pay for Blankets on American
By MICHELLE HIGGINS
American Airlines quietly announced last week that it would eliminate free blankets in coach and sell an $8 packet that includes a pillow and blanket starting May 1.


According to Joesentme.com, a subscription travel site that reported the move last Friday, the airline based its decision on consumer surveys. Joe Brancatelli, the site’s publisher, raised a skeptical brow. “American executives run focus groups on blankets?,” he said. “You think they’d look for customer focus group data on what fliers think about American’s worst-in-the-nation on-time performance, its atrocious baggage-handling ability or the hideous condition of its planes.”

The change is for flights over two hours in length to and from Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, the Caribbean and Central America. The airline will join JetBlue and US Airways, which began charging $7 for a pillow-and-blanket set in 2008 and 2009 respectively.