Word: premium
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While the snacks and legroom are disappearing for budget flyers, those in first class and business class are being treated more royally than ever. The latest amenity: goody bags. Virgin Atlantic gives premium-class flyers a travel bag by Savile Row tailor Ozwald Boateng, holding eponymously branded swag like socks and cuff links. First-class passengers on cross-country Continental flights are wooed with fragrances by Prada and Ghirardelli chocolates. United has given premium flyers bags packed with hundreds of dollars' worth of goodies, including luxury toiletries, snacks and teas, Tempur-Pedic pillows and advance copies of books like Digital...
...that market will grow and how much of a premium customers will be willing to pay remain to be seen. Today heritage turkey sells for up to $6 per lb. and Red Wattle pork for $10 per lb., prices that won't fall unless a lot more Americans change their eating habits. Meanwhile, however, the trend is supporting a growing number of small farms that might otherwise have gone under. Since Sorell began raising old breeds, his farm income has doubled, to $40,000 a year, and could grow bigger when his Red Wattle pork starts getting ground for sausages...
...travel-accessories bag by Savile Row tailor Ozwald Boateng, which holds eponymously branded socks and either cuff links, a hand mirror or a key chain. Continental's U.S. transcontinental first-class passengers have received fragrances by Prada and Ghirardelli chocolates. Fliers in United's U.S transcontinental and U.S.-Japan premium classes have been treated to bags containing at least 1,000 dollars' worth of goodies, including Elizabeth Grant luxury toiletries and advance-reading copies of books like Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. "When [customers] hear that the bags will be given out on certain flights, they'll change their reservations...
...would be too easy, though, to dismiss the 500-m.p.g. movement as all hype and hope. After all, not long ago, hybrids like the Toyota Prius sounded like a laughable idea. These days they are being snapped up by consumers more than willing to pay a premium. So before this pipe dream is summarily cast aside, it's worth exploring. Could it be that the motley coalition of tree huggers and hawks is on to something...
Before I learned this lesson as a reporter, I learned it at Harvard. My undergraduate education taught me that facts are indispensable but originality lies in finding the holes between them. The best classes I took placed a premium on work that took a new approach to an old question. Instead of asking why the French Revolution happened, I was taught to ask why an English revolution did not. The question was inspired by what I did not know, not what I did. Answering it required a different level of analysis and originality. Before you can answer a provoking question...