>

This a good one.

Stephen Dubner, one of the authors of “Freakonomics” (great book, although I prefer Tim Harford’s “The Underground Economist“) was on a domestic Northwest flight in Business. .

Didn’t want the meal for a variety of reasons that sound very familiar – had to keep working, just had something to eat (because you know that the food’s going to be crap), food’ crap – but asked the flight attendant if he could instead have a snack that they were selling for $2 in Economy.

He could – for $2.

There’s been quite a verbal stoush about this, both at Freakonomics and at Consumerist, and it brings to the surface the lunatic fringe with all their envy and class hatred that you’re not supposed to acknowledge exists.

And a lack of common sense.

But it does remind me of flying Air India from Delhi to Mumbai a while back.

Flight came from Katmandu in Nepal, so we were a mixture of domestic and international passengers.

On Air India, there are rules.

The rules are that international passengers don’t get a meal on the domestic leg, because they’ve already been fed on the first leg, but they get alcoholic beverages (because it’s an international flight.)

Domestic passengers get a meal, because it’s that time of day. But no drinks, (because it’s a domestic flight)

So I get a meal, but what I’d really like is a beer.

The guy next to me is glancing covetously at my veg curry and he’s just ordered a beer.

Time for a secondary market to go into action. He orders another beer, we do a quick swap and everyone’s very happy.

Not the flight attendant.

Confiscates my beer, puts the (untouched) meal back in front of me with instructions to EAT IT and gives us both a ticking-off and a lecture about rules and what-have-you.

We look suitably chastened and wait for her to disappear. Meal tray gets shoved surreptitiously over to my new mate, who digs in and shoves it back in front of me when she reappears, while we sit there with butter-wouldn’t melt-in-our-mouths smiles on our faces.

Until she’s gone and we’re off again.

And in the meantime, my mate’s mate has ordered another beer for himself. Or for me….

A pub with no beer.mp3 has rarely been more appropriate