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It might not be that significant of a cost all things considered, but I have always felt the peculiar existence of "professionally happy" cabin crew, in-flight meals, screens and other pointless "comforts" glaringly unnecessary in what's generally meant to be just 2-3 hours of sitting on an average for the passengers. You could just operate a plane like a dumb bus and save up on a lot of costs and turn it into competitive advantage.

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Budget airlines have tried all of these things. Planes doing short haul routes often don't have comforts like screens, let alone meal service.

It turns out that in-flight entertainment helps minimize unruly passengers, and flight attendants are there for safety, not just to serve passengers. Same for legroom requirements (egress).

Sure but the attendants shouldn't have to play dress-up and condescendingly steward every single adult on the plane. Just have them as guard-like postings onboard and cut down costs on the training time wasted on customer "management".

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