And Some Hair For My Little Friend Here

With all the talk of declining ad revenues and falling subscriptions necessitating cost cutting at newspapers, the economics of individual articles often still escapes my understanding.

Raymond Sokolov writes a column for the Wall Street Journal called "Eating Out." I imagine at some point he pitched the idea for a column as follows:

I want to check out the food on some of the "business only" airlines flying between the U.S. and Europe. I'll hop a flight to London on one airline and fly back to New York on the other.

Probably squeeze a thousand words out of it.

How much? Oh, it'll probably run $3300 for the flights, and at least another $300 for my expenses in London.

I got the green light? Thanks.

And hence Crepes On A Plane, which appeared in Saturday's Journal (sub req), was hatched:

Recently, I heard about a revolutionary pair of new single-class luxury airlines, Silverjet and rival Eos. These are two of several new all-business-class airlines that now cosset small numbers of passengers in jets designed for hundreds more, ferrying them between New York and the U.K. at prices routinely below business-class fares on established carriers. These gaudy upstarts would have to give good food a serious try, wouldn't they?

To find out, I flew Silverjet overnight from Newark Liberty Airport to scrappy Luton airport outside London and returned to JFK on Eos from busy Stansted, home of hundreds of budget flights to the continent.

Both trans-Atlantic flights went off without a hitch. Both airlines lent me portable media centers loaded with movies and other entertainment options. I slept in splendid flat-bed isolation from other passengers in both directions.

Eos, however, costs considerably more -- $1,996 one-way or $4,689 round-trip -- compared with Silverjet's respective fares of $1,299 and $2,754. For 40% more money, Eos gave me more value -- fewer passengers (48, compared with Silverjet's maximum of 100), more completely isolated pods with more luxurious bedding, and a friendlier atmosphere. But the food was by far Eos's biggest plus -- sophisticated and as close to a good meal on land as I have ever tasted aloft.

Don't get me wrong, it was an interesting article. Besides the whole food angle, the atmosphere inside the planes--especially the "flat-bed isolation"--sounds wonderful and makes me green with envy. But at what price? The article checks in at 929 words and had to cost close to four grand. A cost/benefit analysis would seem to make the expense difficult to justify.