HEALTHY LIVING TIPS

Today’s paper revealed that the traveling public’s Enemy No. 1 is still wreaking havoc. With his usual low profile, Les LeGroom has kept quietly behind the scenes while coaching airlines with their major decision making. For those unfamiliar with the man, a brief history would be that Les became a highly sought after consultant for the airlines after he left the sardine canning industry in the early nineties with an unprecedented package. His professional forte of packing humans into smaller and smaller spaces is evident in a recent flush of new aircraft deliveries to major airlines. The new planes have the same cabin space as previous models except that they sport an additional dozen or more seats.

Les LeGroom is very open about his unwillingness to buy airline shares, softening his admission by claiming to be a simple fellow with simple tastes in stocks, airlines being too sophisticated for him. But don’t let that down home facade fool anyone; Les is as shrewd as they come. He was the brain behind the disappearance of food galleys in favor of more seats, recognizing that passengers pay and pastries don’t. And that brings up another area in Les’ book of what pays and what doesn’t; apparently there is some ugly water cooler talk going on at airline headquarters these days about the non-profitability of on board lavatories and maybe there needs to be some cutbacks there.

Indeed, it has been revealed through a leaked memo that Les is advocating that airlines begin to advise passengers to purchase ATBs before boarding. After some research, journalists discovered that ATB is the acronym for Airline Travel Brief, which is nothing more than a euphemism for an adult diaper. According to the memo, these should be available for a fee at the boarding gate if passengers have forgotten to supply their own. Apparently, memos are not the only leaks that airlines resent having to contend with.

State of the art seat cushioning is Les’ favorite claim to fame on the new aircraft. New seats are now designed to emulate the thin profile of the flip down LCD screens that are supposed to keep passengers glued in their chairs, mindless of their close quarters. Something tells me that the human body is not as adept at fitting into many of the prescribed folded positions and tilts of the new seating, despite the positive press the airline spokesmen are giving it. Sitting in my flexible desk chair and carefully enacting a written description of how the new seats can recline without disturbing one’s backyard neighbor, I managed to act up my sciatica and bloody my knee on the desk in front of me.

The axiom less is more has its limitations. In this case, Les is just plain less for consumers. His vision for the future is airport terminals that look and smell like bus stations, only with a heavier security detail going on. The odd thing with people is that when you really jam them together, there is often less civility and a lot more hostility. Of course, all this is subtly being pushed on to us over a carefully measured timeframe. It may take that new proposed boarding gate installation, the Sardine Oil Sprayer (acronym SOS), to bring about a real revolution.

(A Note to Readers: After an earlier publication of this commentary, I received an email from a certain L.L. who politely informed me that I had misspelled his name. Correction: Les LeGroom should read as Less LegRoom.)

I opened the paper today to discover that the traveling public’s old nemesis is back at it again. Les LeGroom has been an insidious presence in the airline industry for a long time but his influence is having an ever greater reach with a new rash of aircraft deliveries. Airlines are taking possession of airplanes that have same-size cabins as earlier ones but with the important distinction of having more seats crammed into them. Les has been up to this trick of squeezing humanity into tighter and tighter spaces for quite some time. Airlines have been hiring him as a key consultant ever since he left the sardine canning industry.

No one can discredit Les LeGroom by saying he lacks of ingenuity. The airlines cannot get enough of this guy’s ideas. He always delivers the goods and does it smoothly, such as when the removal of food galleys created hardly any upset among seasoned passengers. After all, this was seen as a positive public health move, the end of gray chicken a la king. A few more seats were tucked in these nooks as though they had always been there. So full of ideas, it is like Les never sleeps and of course, he expects the same from airline passengers. Another of his expectations may come as a bit of a shock though. Rumor has it that he is urging the airlines to consider cutting back on a significant percentage of lavatory space, to make room for even yet more seating. Why waste all that space on one or two uncomfortable thrones?

What credence should be given to this chatter? As odds would have it, earlier this year an independent journalist and blogger covering a paper products trade show in Foshan, China tripped over a small display of adult diapers, their waistbands imprinted with generic airline wings. Her inquiries were quickly silenced when she answered that she was not with a Mr. LeGroom. The booth’s manager threw a tarp over the pile, saying “This prototype. No ATB orders today.” A quick Baidu search answered her questions as to who the mysterious Mr. LeGroom was and that the acronym ATB stood for Airline Travel Brief. Even the mathematically disinclined can see where this is going.

Les has also come up with seat designs that are supposed to eliminate any perception of tighter space on board. These seat structures are thinner, with a bottom that somehow miraculously slides forward to produce a reclining position that doesn’t compromise the knee room of the passenger in the seat behind. Not fully understanding this concept when I read it in the paper, I tried to replicate the described tilting motion with my office chair and immediately bruised my knee on my keyboard tray. I guess it’s just one of those things that need to be seen to be believed

What is Les LeGroom’s vision for the future of air travel? It hardly bears contemplation. People shoved together in their ATBs, figuring out their ETAs and stinking to high heaven of the sardine oil showered on them by the sprinklers recently installed at the boarding gate. Practices gleaned from one industry and applied to another can have frightening consequences. We might be well advised to tuck one of those funny little can keys into our Airline Travel Briefs just in case of an emergency.

(Readers: Please note that this is a reprint of an earlier publication in which I unintentionally misspelled a certain gentleman’s name. Since then, I received a polite email stating that in fact, Les LeGroom is spelled Less LegRoom.)