The San Francisco Citizen

Well, check it out. Today, Southwest Airlines (LUV) is crowing about their lack of fees.

So that means “NO First or Second Checked Bag Fees, Change Fees, Fuel Surcharges, Snack Fees, Aisle or Window Seat Fees, Curbside Check-In Fees, or Phone Reservation Fees.” Hurray!

What the “legacy” carriers don’t seem to understand is that some people really, really don’t like hidden fees. Like how some restaurants in San Francisco hit you with an undisclosed 4% tack-on when you get your bill. 

Fly with Southwest and you’ll think you’ve been transported back to the 1970’s, when fees were a four-letter word:

Nostalgic photo via Church of the Customer

Now, some may quibble about a few things, like how the cheapest fares from Southwest are only available online. But that’s as it should be, since reserving a flight by yourself lowers the expenses of running the airline. This is a better approach than a company advertising a price and then surprising you with a fee that you didn’t even know existed. The point is that Southwest has none of the new fees all the other airlines seem to have.  

Now this might put SWA at a disadvantage when they advertise their rates, because they lose all those little “profit centers” the other airlines take advantage of. But just remember that Bags Fly Free, and lots of other things are free, when you fly with LUV.

Hurray. Certain other airlines should take notice of this.

Full-service public relations and public affairs consultancy Hill and Knowltonannounced today that former vice president Al Gore, upon his death, will be encased in carbonite and then buried. This type of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) was only made possible this year through the use of nanotechnology.

Until recently this was our understanding of carbonite, made famous in Star Wars V - The Empire Strikes Back:

“By the rules of chemical nomenclature, the formula for a “carbonite anion” would be CO22-, which is thought to be an impossible formation (methanoate being preferentially formed instead).”

Impossible no longer.

Artist’s conception of the former vice president encased in the densest form of carbon known to man:

Just one treatment of this double carbon material will take the equivalent of 1200 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. The only downside will be the expense of a slightly oversized coffin. The upside is that Al Gore, Jr. will be the most severely carbon negative person in recorded history.

A relieved Hill & Knowlton spokesperson confided to one reporter that this announcement will lay to rest the controversy over the greenhouse emissions of Al Gore’s house, for some reason an issue of almost daily concern to the D.C.-based House of Flack.

If only Han Solo were alive to see this day…