Airlines take the next step: Charging for bathrooms!

Irish budget airline Ryanair recently announced that it is considering charging its passengers to use the bathroom. This follows in the steps of the airline's decision to close all of its airport check-in desks by the end of the year, and seems to represent a new gold standard in airline thrift.

This decision, while almost bizarrely self-destructive, is hardly surprising. Anybody who has been paying attention to the airlines over the past year has grown accustomed to outlandish schemes to generate revenue. Some, like Spirit airlines' decision to plaster advertisements on flight attendants, are a bit silly. Others, like United's decision to disconnect its customer service line, or Ryanair's tendency to hire sociopaths to deal with the public, almost seem designed to reduce market share.