PETER01

Ah that's a blast from the past the News of the World! I can't remember such a story re a Lancaster bomber in the NOTW and think you may be referring to the Sunday Sport! What were you reading back then LTN Phobia?

Back on topic, my understanding that the newspapers were provided free? I wouldn't like to see that enhanced away.

LTN Phobia

Ah, that's right, it was Sunday Sport! I got the two bizarre ones mixed up. Now could Sunday Sport be classified as 'mainstream', I wonder That's also no more, isn't it.

I recall seeing the front page feature or something about the Lancaster Bomber business and I went "Eh?" and picked up one of the broadsheets, as I recall. And also recall seeing a front page picture of this man with lots of nails growing out of his head. What was that about?! I sort of took it as weird kind of humour.

Back to the subject...

I think tabloid edition of broadsheets should be provided for aeroplanes - they don't take up as much space and don't intrude into your space much.

PETER01

I see your point opalfruit but sometimes, me personally, I get bored and a bit of light heartedness (and silly gossip/celebrity stories) makes a refreshing change and takes the oh so doom and gloom feeling away that the serious articles the papers you quote. I tend to ignore the racial stuff and 'explosive' stories most of which are nonsense and as you rightly say rhetoric.

At this rate you're right though, heavy cuts everywhere and 'performance' and 'efficiency' seems to be the norm nowadays in many sectors and not just including aviation. P and E are not a bad thing but there has to be a balance too with the customer at mind. I feel for the crew who are at the front end of this though and they can only work with the tools/food etc they are given.

PETER01

Sunday Sport is definitely not mainstream and is only available online now I believe. I certainly don't read it or subscribe just to be clear!

It was a weird paper in ways and apparently Elvis is still alive somewhere!!

Leave the papers the way they are and I can't see a change there if there is no cost (although I have no knowledge of such things)

CDGflyer

Thanks for the welcome and sorry for the use of the 'e' swear word.


Lurked for along time, but never felt the need to post - until I got this piece of gossip.

jcm9000

Good, annoys me when someone next to me weechs out a paper and shoves the front/back page in my face. Waste of trees (or loo roll if recycled). Your phone can access pretty much the entire catalogue of human knowledge, including today's news (papers usually being yesterday's news...). Cleaner fingers too! Beeb app for news (or ft for ba issues) on ground, kindle or whatever for a book in the air. Smashing. Or am i just being unusally modern?! I honestly cannot remember the last time i read a paper.

charlieduke

Wrong paper. That's the Sunday sport you are referring to.

EMA ON BA

Getting mildly back on topic... as much as I wouldn't like to see newspapers go (one of the few reasons I just about still need two hands to count the reasons to fly BA over their cheaper, more reliable and more customer focused competitors) you can see why this might make sense to the lunatics running the asylum.

Working on an assumed average weight per newspaper of: 200g
Assume that they stock an average of 85 newspapers per short haul flight (some passengers take two)
Only 20 passengers would buy and carry a newspaper on board if they weren't free
Assuming newspapers are flown in from Heathrow/Gatwick/City, each inbound flights from a European outstation therefore have to carry: [(85 X 2) - 20] X 0.20 = 30 kgs of extra 'cargo'

Assuming 250 inbound flights from Europe to London per day, that equates to 2,737,500kg of newspapers transported.

Not sure how valid each are those assumptions are but I'd imagine it would still be a scarily large number (with a high associated carbon footprint).

Could anyone fill in the gaps with the opportunity cost (foregone cargo) or actual cost (fuel burn) of the 15kg per one way European flight?

Davidjonesk

Do you have a picture of this?

I think you are not remembering correctly.

12939

I suspect that LTN Phobia was referring to this:

LTN Phobia

That's one of them.

I recall seeing a couple of variations of the same theme. I probably got the "Read" bit wrong but as you've shown, "the Sun" bit was definitely there because I remember talking about it with some people as an example of 'awful airline liveries'.

It's probably contributed to my never yet having set foot on Ryanair aircraft.

rapidex

Octobers enhancement.

Due to the requirement to spray our aircraft to prevent transmission of the Zika virus,food service will become unhygienic and therefore discontinued for the welbeing of our passengers

BahrainLad

Unless the newspapers are paid for they won't count in the appropriate ABC figures.

Volume discounts are available, however.

South London Bon Viveur

I love a newspaper (I am talking about the real ones, not the hot towels . Would be a shame to enhance these away, but an obvious target for the bean counters in my opinion.

FatnLoud

I have a couple of publishing clients and this certainly used to be the case, but these fees (known as "placement charges") are long gone for most prestigious publications, especially for airlines and other high value locations. They are, however, still provided free of charge.