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Grounded airline planes turned into pop-up restaurants sell out in 30 minutes:
Amidst plunging revenues due to the pandemic, Singapore Airlines is turning two of its Airbus A380 planes parked at Changi Airport into impromptu restaurants on October 24th and 25th, and it's proved surprisingly popular. Bloomberg reports that all seats at the restaurants sold out within 30 minutes of bookings opening, as people rushed to recapture the excitement of balancing a tiny meal on an even tinier fold-down airline table.
I admit I normally quite like airplane food, but that's probably because it's something to focus my attention on beyond an endless series of films I was never interested enough in to see in the cinema. Singapore Airlines is selling four different tiers of meals according to Bloomberg, ranging from a meal in a suite for around $474, right down to an economy experience for the equivalent of $39. Around half the planes' seats will be available for dining to allow for social distancing.
[...] Although seats on the A380 have now sold out, Bloomberg notes that Singapore Airlines plans to open a wait list and will investigate how it can accommodate the extra demand.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday October 13 2020, @04:09PM (13 children)
When you see "Singapore" you need to understand one thing about the country. It's ridiculously stratified. There's an upper crust made of some of the richest people in Asia. Wall Street types, but profiting off exploitive labor awful environmental abuse in SE Asia and Micronesia directly, rather than the American corporate model of outsourcing the evil and insourcing the profit. And a working class who's doing just enough better than their Malaysian and Indonesian neighbors to feel like they have something to lose.
So the entire city-state is built on offering grim excess to those hyper-rich assholes. So every time you see something stupidly wasteful happening there, that's what's happening; people with more money than they know what to do with buying completely stupid things as status symbols.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday October 13 2020, @04:22PM (7 children)
Not Singapore specific. The airlines are desperately trying to stay... ummm... afloat.
Examples:
1. selling memorabilia [iknowthepilot.com.au] or full bar carts [executivetraveller.com]
2. scenic flights [simpleflying.com]
Now, stratified society or not, of course the companies are addressing people with money, that's the whole point; if you need money, you won't get them from the people that don't have them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:17PM
Delta posts $5.4 billion loss in another brutal quarter for airline industry [nbcnews.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday October 13 2020, @06:55PM (3 children)
I was going to say "Oh but singapore isn't doing bad for covid and probably isn't seeing the same reductions as delta"
Then I fact checked myself, and boy am I wrong. Year over year, changi airport referenced in this story has a 95% reduction in travelers for this month.
I don't have anything to add, I just feel like if I argue a lot when I'm right, I should post when I'm wrong too.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday October 14 2020, @04:41PM
People in Singapore are taking the virus seriously so they're flying less than the folks in the US who don't...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 14 2020, @04:43PM (1 child)
Singapore is a small island. Their airline isn't going to have much domestic business when international travel is down by a lot. And their passenger business was huge pre-covid: https://www.flightglobal.com/strategy/passenger-growth-lifts-singapore-airliness-third-quarter-results/136769.article [flightglobal.com]
Most of their planes are grounded and they've parked some in Australia: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/only-10-out-of-200-sia-planes-still-flying-passengers-most-parked-at-changi-with [straitstimes.com]
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday October 14 2020, @05:21PM
Thank you, very useful context.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @07:13PM
Boeing has trouble keeping them aloft.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @08:29PM
Yeah, I wonder how well grounded their business model is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:19PM (3 children)
The country is also a one party state, such that they proclaim they are a democracy, but wrongthinkers get imprisoned on contrived libel and hate speech charges. The party holds special favor for the "communist" government in China, and has been controlled by the Li family for decades.
Sound familiar?
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday October 13 2020, @06:50PM
I don't think that sounds especially familiar. Maybe I'm missing a wink or a nudge.
One party states are shit, pretty universally(two parties aren't much better), but it's not too much like any of the other one party states out there.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday October 14 2020, @12:26AM (1 child)
It's like insulting the Jews in America. It's okay for Black Goyim to beat up White Goyim all day long, but if either insults the ruling party (Jews) who according to your description of stratification are overrepresented at the top, then lives are destroyed due to a social credit score that the Jews have worked to implement in America as the CCP has worked to implement in China.
That's why Jews are selling America out to the Chinks as we speak. Americans believe in freedom and rights, the Jews and the ruling party of China both have no scruples and can't see beyond profit and conquest of the more civilized.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday October 14 2020, @04:44PM
Congratulations on getting your contract renewed.
All you are doing now is benefitting the Democrats with your obvious racism so that seems like a strategic misstep to me but hey, I'm no FSB analyst!
(Score: 2) by driverless on Wednesday October 14 2020, @08:05AM
You mean:
(Score: 4, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:00PM (3 children)
Some people love to be punished. The airline is still available to satisfy your need.
Hail to the Nibbler in Chief.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:46PM (1 child)
Yeah, it's like flying - same price, same comfort, same atrocious food - only you ain't flying: you just sit there like an idiot on the tarmac.
I guess for a little extra, you can have the kid sitting in the seat behind you crying and kicking your backrest...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @07:47PM
While this is a nebulous business plan I'm glad it really took off. Hopefully it doesn't run into turbulence and crash.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @07:36PM
You have to admit the idea did really take off.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday October 13 2020, @05:24PM
It seems like a happening. They occur in chaotic times. Most of them enjoy a short run and then disappear. Remember flash mobs? They were common 20 years ago after the dot-bomb. Now they don't really crop up. The main thing to know about them is they express social anxiety. When social anxiety manifests at this level, larger dislocations like revolutions and civil wars occur.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2020, @06:37PM (2 children)
The Magic Christian is a great 60's lark of a movie. Full thing is here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FE2zTnOJ94I [youtube.com]
Stars Ringo Starr, Peter Sellers, with smaller parts by John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Raquel Welch(!!), Spike Milligan, Christopher Lee, Richard Attenborough... and Roman Polanski for that final dose of "ick!"
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday October 14 2020, @03:58AM (1 child)
There's a bright side though: you don't need to pay for the return trip. (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 14 2020, @09:05PM
Have you seen The Magic Christian? By the time the "passengers" get out, the last thing they are thinking of is paying for a return trip!
The galley scene with all naked women appearing to be "rowing the boat" is just one of many classics (but the easiest to describe).