Pay-to-plug coming soon to a flight near you

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Runway Girl Network has an… interesting/alarming/promising story about a new development in airline interiors – soon airlines will be able to charge you for using the at-seat power plugs.


It's just the next terrible addition to the nickle-and-diming price structure that airlines seem to be in love with these days. But given the horrible direction airlines are taking their Economy and domestic First cabins (removing all seatback entertainment, shoving in extra rows, shrinking toilets, etc) I guess the only thing left to say here is, "Welp, I guess I prefer a pay-to-plug seat over one with no power at all…"

(Quick sidebar here: can I just say how much I love that JetBlue has bucked this terrible trend? They're actually installing larger screens in Economy and they have blazing-fast, free Wi-Fi).

Oh but the horrors don't end there: a related invention from KID-Systeme has circuitry in the plug itself to let you charge for free in exchange for watching ads it serves up on your plugged-in device. Given the security nightmare that we've seen with IoT devices, I don't know that I want an airline USB outlet to have permission to run any kind of program on my phone or pad.

Check out the Runway Girl Network story for pictures and video of these depressing scenes from your near future!




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