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American Airlines: Aisle Seats Now a Perk for the Loyal or Rich

Many people are disgusted with the airlines constantly finding new ways to ding passengers, particularly with fees for services that used to be part of the ticket price.

Now American Airlines and possibly others are putting a premium on some conventional aisle seating in coach.

Here is a seating chart for a 30-row airplane:

Note the string of purple aisle seats that extends back as far as row 22. Checking the legend and what the double asterisks mean solves the mystery.

*MOUSE PRINT:

The purple seats are considered “preferred seats” and only go in advance to upper level people in AA’s frequent flier program and those paying full coach fare. The saving grace at American is that they don’t charge a fee for a premium coach seat, unlike some other airlines.

The effect of American’s seating policy is that anyone making a conventional reservation on a discounted ticket even over six weeks before the flight is seemingly only offered a middle or window seat, and a tiny subset of the coach aisle seats — at least on this particular flight. (And despite American’s representation that additional seats will be made available within 24 hours of departure for the peasants in coach, the airline held those seats for assignment only at the airport.)

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Paper Products Downsized

With higher prices for oil and raw materials, paper products companies are downsizing their products, again. Here are two more examples:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Going from 216 to 200 tissues per box is a reduction of almost seven and half percent. The clever folks at P&G don’t put the count anywhere but on the perforated strip that you remove when opening the box, so you have no way of double-checking from purchase to purchase how many tissues were in your last box. (Thanks to Rodney G. for the tip about Puffs.)

*MOUSE PRINT:

While it is true that no one is likely to miss that extra 1/8th of an inch, the maker of Dixie plates must have thought the savings were significant enough to invest money in the retooling and repackaging. One-eight of an inch times millions of plates adds up.

It is curious, however, that while the plates’ diameter in inches has shrunk, the diameter in centimeters appears to have increased from 21-cm to 21.5-cm. Whoever said the metric system made more sense?

Few people are likely to have caught these changes because they were done so inconspicuously.

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Where’s the Fresh Tomatoes?

Last week, the National Consumers League (NCL) called on the FDA to warn food manufacturers that they may be violating federal law by using tomato sauce product labels that suggest that fresh-picked tomatoes are in their tomato sauce when in fact their products are mainly from concentrate.

NCL cited several examples. Example 1:

*MOUSE PRINT:

Here, the label suggests that the product is just ripe red tomatoes and basil, when in fact the first two ingredients are water and tomato paste.

A spokesperson for Heinz responded to NCL’s charges, saying:

“We are surprised by the NCL’s claim that Classico Tomato & Basil pasta sauce is not made from ripe, red tomatoes. The two primary ingredients in are tomato puree and diced tomatoes, both of which are made from ripe, red tomatoes that are picked and processed at the peak of freshness.”

Example 2:

*MOUSE PRINT:

In this case, the front of the jar shows fresh tomatoes, but the ingredients show that it only has water and tomato paste as the primary ingredients, not even diced tomatoes as some other brands do.

Example 3:

*MOUSE PRINT:

In this case, the front label says “Roma style tomatoes” and shows fresh vine-rippened tomatoes, while the back says “Our vine-ripened Roma style tomatoes are grown to a rich red color before picking…” This product too is made from just water and tomato paste.

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