Read to the end for an ESP pun.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s edition was severely delayed due to an outage with my mail-sending service. I apologize for not being able to get this to you on time.

👋🏻 Welcome to this week's edition of TimeMachiner. Thanks for subscribing and checking out my work. I'm so happy you're here.

I'm someone who flies a whole bunch throughout the year. Every few months I find myself at an airport and heading toward the skies toward a destination other than NY. When you're in the skies for enough time you start to take notice of the interesting ways flights are run and how the whole operation works.

Of course, cost-cutting is no secret in the industry. Less leg room = more seats and fees are littered throughout the entire process. One interesting cost-cutting move though was back in the 80s. This was a near-invisible move from American Airlines that saved the company tens of thousands per year and it came down to olives.

The head of the airline, Robert Crandall, calculated that every salad served to a passenger could use one less olive. By shaving it down, it saved money and the rest is history.

As someone who flies Southwest a lot, I've seen that when I get my drink, it's in a cup with some ice and it's already poured. Generally, this isn't a big deal. However, those cups are small! Yes, I know they can stretch a can of soda across multiple passengers by pouring it themselves prior to serving them. But how do you work around that? It's pretty simple: You ask for a whole can! This little trick blew my mind, but it really is just that easy. Now when I travel I ask for whatever I want "in a full can" and the flight attendant is always happy to oblige. I still get a cup of ice, but I pour it myself and I get enough to drink.

In a funny way, one of the best things to do against a lack of "amenities" is to just bring it yourself. Snacks? Get 'em from Target or wherever and bring them on board. Entertainment? I have any TV show or movie or podcast or song I could ever want downloaded to my iPhone, ready to use. Between my MacBook's large screen as a personal TV or my Kindle as my super-portable book, I frankly am very comfortable with the removal of all that stuff from an airplane. Wifi though? That should be free and it seems Delta is going that route (no pun intended).

Traveling always kind of sucks. It's exhausting, takes a lot of time, and is a hassle. Seeing less for what you get sours the experience too. But when I have to go thousand-plus miles, I'm not exactly going to take the bus.

I hope you have a great week.

-Aaron

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TODAY'S RANDOM FACTOID

The smallest park in the world is a circle in a street 2 feet across. Source

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