12.28.06
Of Boarding Passes and Business Centers
It costs $4 to print a boarding pass, but $1 to print any other kind of document in the “Business Center” in the hotel I recently visited. This despite the fact that my documents were all neatly bundled into one travel-handy PDF, and the strain on the printer, and on the attendant, would be no different. But the attendant was (following orders and) watching my print-job progress and spotted the transgressive “Boarding Group A” emblazoned on page 3. Hence the announcement that it would cost me 4 times the normal rate to print those particular pages. Why? That’s the rule.
Note this is no multitonal, high rez work of digital art. It was merely a document to be printed afresh, one not to be faxed or duplicated, but printed as an “original” for the airline’s stringent security measures (one wonders about how those fax-copier-printers and how asymptotically close to the appearance of a “fresh” print one has to get to seem legit).
The regulation goes on–now the *content* of our print jobs determines how much we are charged? This is not about the cost of reproduction, but opportunity cost on the part of the Business Center. Commercial copy shops etc. have balked at actively engaging in copyright violations, even for a good cause, which one could hardly suppose they’d wink at given the lawsuit potential. Those indulging in semi-licit “fair use” are forced to chug the quarters thru on their own and in secret.
Now, however, even a fully legal, sanctioned– nay, encouraged — efficiency practice on the part of one corporate interest (the airline’s) results in opportunistic laserjet price gouging on another’s (the hotel’s). This is reminiscent of, but worse than, $4 gas during alleged shortages (which if it weren’t so regressive wouldn’t be a bad idea), or $4 bottles of water in hotel rooms (which at least can claim a convenience tax based on someone’s labor in purchasing them and placing them clad in their little paper collars in your room). Here their only justification is that they do it Because They Can.
Ascertaining the specific nature of your print job infringes upon what intuitively seems should be a private transaction. It reminds me more of being forced to pay protection money than it does of the CYA tactics of the neighborhood Kinko’s. At least Kinko’s can claim fear of lawsuits. Business Centers fear…what? That they’ll let a golden opportunity slip by? That they’ll be over-run by harried travelers hoping to get into Group A for unassigned seating? Is it actually meant as a deterrent? If so, it worked for me.
I did wonder, briefly, whether the airline would care if we printed at 50% size so we could get two boarding passes on one page (would it still be an original, like Willy Wonka’s chocolate bar, even if reduced in size?) or would it lose its status as such? Tempting as this experiment was (I would have still “reprinted” at the airport kiosk as a backup anyway; I’m a pragmatic revolutionary), I ultimately couldn’t condone either the invasion of my print-job privacy or the nonsensical price gouging.
It *was* tempting, though. I wonder if they’d have accepted colored paper? Dot matrix? Oh well. I’d likely be too afraid to follow through, for fear that somehow my experiment would be interpreted as a threatening act and I’d end up wanded and on standby late into the wee hours. Moo.