NYT: Airlines charging for pillows now

Coffee, tea, and now pillows

JetBlue Airways said Monday that it planned to begin charging for pillow and blanket sets on flights of two hours or longer. The $7 sets, which passengers can keep and reuse, include a 10-by-12 inch pillow, a fleece blanket and a $5 coupon for Bed Bath & Beyond. Buying the sets will be the only option for airline slumberers who do not tote their own; pillows and blankets will no longer be distributed free.
Last week, US Airways began charging $1 for coffee and tea and $2 for bottled water and soft drinks, a step already taken by some European carriers. Several airlines have begun charging passengers to check luggage and book tickets using their frequent-flier miles. JetBlue tried to put a green spin on the move, portraying the kits as environmentally friendly.
“Replacing our old, recycled pillows and blankets with this state-of-the-art, high-quality take-home kit is an eco-conscious, health-conscious and customer-conscious decision,” the general manager for product development, Brett Muney, said. But in the end, the decision was driven by economics, the latest move by airlines to find revenue wherever they can to combat record prices for jet fuel, which is up 71 percent from a year ago, according to the International Air Transport Association. Long a feature of commercial plane travel, pillows and blankets began disappearing on domestic flights in 2005, when the industry was hit by a wave of bankruptcy filings.
To be sure, $7 seems to be a reasonable price. Bed Bath & Beyond offers travel pillows on its Web site that range from $3.99 for a cotton-polyester version to $79.99 for a Tempur-Pedic foam model. And the sets are bound to assure passengers that their sleepy-time accessories are not full of germs, a concern among some health experts. JetBlue’s move to sell pillows and blankets has been long in the making. In 2006, David Neeleman, the airline’s founder and former chief executive, said JetBlue was thinking about selling them in an effort to catch up to other carriers in finding ways to produce revenue.
This year, JetBlue began charging $10 to $20 for seats with extra legroom and doubled its fee to change a ticket to $100. It also began selling refundable tickets, which can cost tens of dollars more than its nonrefundable tickets.
The refundable fares and extra legroom were an effort by JetBlue to attract more business travelers, rather than the vacationers who have been its focus since it began flying in 2000. Whether travelers will want to buy pillows and blankets, too, is yet to be seen.