I had to laugh at Management Today’s article on Ryan Air’s plans to replace toilets on their planes with paid seating.

Famous for its cut-throat approach
to cost-cutting the budget airline plans to remove two of its loos and replace them with up to six extra
seats but as MT asks “Is its latest ruse literally taking the piss”. 

Planning meetings:
We can only imagine the suggestions that the management team come up with at cost-cutting planning meetings. Presumably
they’ve considered building on the priority boarding model by charging for in-flight
commodes. this could be a money earner whilst saving passengers having to get up from their seat mid-flight.

It should be noted that there’s no legal stipulation for
an airline to provide toilets on its aircraft. It’s just if you’re supplying loads of beers to stag parties off for the weekend it would seem sensible to keep the seats dry for those coming back on the return journey!
Or will dry seats cost extra in the future?

Maximum seats allowed
As Ryanair proposes to prevent passengers from squeezing one out at one
end, it’s simultaneously doing the squeezing at the other: The airline carries an
estimated 75m passengers per year, and currently flies only Boeing
737-800 and has installed 189 seats on each plane, the maximum
allowed under current rules and it also charges up
to £20 per piece of checked luggage per flight. The Office of Fair Trading is investigating a ‘super-complaint’ by
the Consumers’ Association into such charges by low-cost airlines.

Maria called her team to a meeting and informed them that the CEO and FD have asked her to find a quick result that would provide a financial saving.

Her team went away and after some discussion between them have suggested that substantial savings could be made by withdrawing free canteen lunches from part-time staff. It was estimated that savings could amount to over £12,000 pa. This was considered an excellent idea and free meals for part time staff were withdrawn.

That night, last Thursday, the CEO returned home to find that his wife, who works part-time in the accounts department, and children were eating but that there was no meal for him. On enquiring why he was told by his wife, “you’re not feeding me at lunch so I’m not feeding you at night”.

Maria has been asked to replace the free meal allowance for all part-time staff. Naturally, she is a bit agrieved at this loss of face and is blaming her team for the suggestion.