Naked Sedated Airline

* via Rimone: "‘I guess it’s only a matter of time before Naked Sedated Airline gets going.’" and ‘When lip gloss is outlawed, only outlaws will have lip gloss…’

* in other news, i once worked in/for the airport industry. it's actually quite fascinating for those of you interested in business, and strategy and all that. (ummm - ok - so i'm all alone on that front.) In any case, from memory, airports make about something like 25% of their money from stuff related to air travel (landing fees and whatnot), another 20% for terminal leasing, approximately 30% from retail concessions, and approximately 15% from parking - and a bit left over for advertising and other assorted revenue earners. (the american experience is a bit different for some weird regulatory reasons). I can't remember what % of retail is at the front end of the flight vs the back end - but you can easily see that airports will go broke quickly if they can't sell stuff.

further, many (non-am) airports have been privatised in the last decade - largely debt-financed. the cashflow to pay the debt comes mostly from the retail side - and 'rent' is literally a percentage of sales.

ten bucks says that the airport lobbies will soon 'convince' governments around the place that it's actually safe for people to carry stuff on planes again.