Six days to D.C. I am counting hours.
Speeding along in a taxi to the airport this morning, I watched the meter. I wasn’t expecting a surprise; the glowing, upticking numbers just caught my eye. A taxi from the Lower East Side to La Guardia is about $34 + tip, sometimes more with tolls unless you take the Williamsburg Bridge, which is my preference. I take taxis to airports a lot and this morning, I had an idea:
I think airlines should offer taxi vouchers to frequent fliers.
I am well aware this is a service-oriented idea in a service-oriented culture and this idea is small ball. Peter Thiel’s new book, Zero To One, encourages us all to chart new territory in the world and not repeat what’s been done before.** Taxi vouchers from airlines hasn’t been done before but there are a lot of vouchers in the world. I have not created a hoverboard. I have not invented a safe and effective method of giving humans tails, which I think would be fantastic.
But I am putting a number of Southwest Airlines’ children through college at this point and though it’s a nice gesture, drink tickets aren’t my idea of a real perk. The only way to make Jack Daniels worse is when you’re drinking Jack Daniels mixed with Diet Coke at 35,000 feet. I like being in the VIP line a lot, but every time I go to or from the airport, I’m in a taxicab. Wouldn’t a voucher be great for some or part of the trip? Totally.
With apps and Uber and the service-oriented economy, surely this is possible. We put a man on the moon and Lady Gaga is going to sing in space in 2015! There are cats on the Internet who sing in chorus. I have every faith in humanity that this idea can be a reality.
I will wait with anticipation to get a taxi voucher from an airline and I will relish separating the check from the attendant thank-you letter. You know what I mean? When you tear a check or a voucher along that perforation line? God, I love that.
**I highly recommend reading Thiel’s book. Thiel was the founder of PayPal and one of the first investors in Facebook. It’s a game-changer and I’ll be giving everyone a copy for Christmas along with candy of some kind or other.