Friday, August 29, 2008

What are they thinking....

Not all of our posts will be about the day to day chronicles of the Risk family. Some posts will actually share our thoughts on issues. This is one such post.

I watched a video on CNN earlier and decided I had to soundoff on the obsurdity of the Air Canada's Jazz Airlines division to remove life preserver vests from all flights. The reasoning - to save fuel. Now, I understand the need to cut fuel costs and that the reduction of weight will use less fuel, but we are talking about less than 25 kg, or one small child. The arguement is that passengers can use the seat cushion floatation devices and that none of the airlines planes fly more than 50 km from land. These are absolutely insane reasons. Life preserver vests were put on planes because the seat cushion floatation device was not adequate for long term use. (I imagine they are probably rather hard to hold onto and after an extended period in the water, one would become even more exhausted and eventually have to let go.) Secondly, 50 km is quite a distance and when you are talking about the cold north Atlantic around Nova Scotia (where Jazz Airlines appear to be based), it is not likely that one will swim to shore.

Maybe Jazz Airlines isn't worried about it because they have crash proof planes. Or maybe the airline feels that if a plane crashes over water, no one will survive anyway.

Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about flying. Let's hope the trend doesn't catch on here in the United States.

1 comment:

Mama10EE said...

Maybe it's their way to make MORE money....we have taken all of the lifevests off the plane to help keep our costs low....but if you ask your flight attendant he/she will be happy to SELL you a lifevest for a nominal fee...