Upgraded: Restful sleep on Air Canada
It must be the mood lighting: A British passenger not only slept through the landing of his Air Canada flight from Calgary to Vancouver, he slept through the deplaning. He woke up when the plane was back in the hangar. The airline has apologized for not getting him off the plane, and given him a voucher for 20% off his next flight.

Upgraded: In-flight catering
Downgraded: Airline profits on food sales onboard
While — or perhaps because — Continental has thrown in the towel and given up on complimentary inflight meals, North American airlines are stepping up their domestic inflight catering, according to this account from the NYT. But this nugget surprised me, with regard to thin margins on food sales:

Indeed, in-flight food sales are not huge money-makers for the airlines. Tom Douramakos, chief executive of GuestLogix, a company based in Toronto that makes the hand-held devices and software used by most North American carriers for in-flight sales, said carriers generated a net profit of only 5 or 10 cents on a $10 sale of in-flight food. But, he said, gross profit on sales of in-flight liquor generally can go as high as 50 to 80 percent on a $10 drink.

Eat less, drink more, the airlines say!

Upgraded: Electric rental cars
Europe’s Sixt has started renting electric cars in London. And their competitor, Europcar, has placed an order for 500 electric vehicles, to come online in 2011.

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