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Six ways Estonian Air can beat RyanAir
RyanAir, the low-cost Irish airline whose airplanes double as garbage trucks, released a press release on May 11th apologizing to Estonian Air for taking all of its customers. The press release was issued two days after Estonian Air’s president resigned, ostensibly because the state-owned airline is facing difficulties attracting customers.
As the hunt for Estonian Air’s new CEO begins, I thought I’d offer up some ideas to the candidates beyond the obvious. Anyone can throw around business-school jargon like “reduce prices from borderline abusive to merely astronomical” or “tell your stewardesses to stop looking at me like they’re about to commit a hate crime.” When CEO candidates sit down with Estonian Air’s board, they’ll need to pitch the kind of extraordinary ideas that can turn around a failing airline. Here are some of those ideas.
Treat Estonian Air like the Tallinn public transportation system
Buying tickets is boring. I love Tallinn’s public transportation system because each trip is a suspenseful gamble: I sneak on and prepare myself to sprint if I see the Municipal Police. And since the €1.60 price tag on a single-journey Tallinn transport ticket is as absurdly high as Estonian Air’s ticket prices in relative terms, the public won’t feel bad about bringing jänest sõitma to the skies.
Stop checking tickets for Estonian Air flights at the gate and let people board the plane on a “good faith” basis. Then perform ticket checks at random: if a passenger doesn’t have a ticket, slap him with a €1000 fine. Averaged out, the revenue per passenger will probably remain the same, but thrill-seekers will get the satisfaction of trying to beat the system. This will also create an opportunity for an entirely new revenue stream: put parachutes on the on-board menu next to €5 bags of peanuts and €8 beers.
Start advertising in British prisons
If Estonian Air wants to beat RyanAir, it needs to reach RyanAir’s demographic. Why not reach out to those people first, before they’re released from prison? A giant Estonian Air poster, adorned with a smiling blonde woman standing next to Viru Gate, will sell far more tickets than the promise of a discount, especially if it’s placed strategically (eg, the shower room).
While prisoners may not have the expendable cash or the permission from society to fly when they see the advertisement, they’ll certainly be thinking of Estonian Air the second the iron gates close behind them and they’re considered free men.
Release a diss track about the CEO of RyanAir
When a rapper sees his album sales dropping, he releases a “diss track” – a song insulting another rapper – to reinvigorate interest in his music. The same thing could work for CEOs: release a diss track about a rival CEO’s company and watch the honies and the loot roll in.
Because an old white guy, far removed from the game, may have trouble coming up with potent diss track lyrics, I’ve outlined a sample song below:
Who’s the punk CEO of RyanAir?
I’ll send him to intensive care
Talking trash about Estonian Air, but I don’t even care
Yeah, my ticket prices are high
And my airplane seats don’t recline
But who cares, I look at my Rolex when I need to know the time
Add a new route from Lennart Meri airport to the Swissotel
Estonian Air’s justification for its Tartu-Tallinn route – which, on average, is only 30% full – is that business travelers need a fast connection between the two cities. So why not roll out the red carpet to business travelers (which I interpret to mean rich people) even further and offer them a direct connection to the Swissotel? A cab ride from the airport to downtown can take up to 15 minutes in rush hour. Who has that kind of time?
If someone is trying to save time on the 2.5 hour Tartu-Tallinn trip by getting to the airport an hour early, checking their bags, passing through security, and then boarding an airplane, they’d probably also be willing to do the same for the 15 minute journey to their hotel. Charge them €50, call the flight a premium service, and Estonian Air has a massive new revenue stream on its hands.
Non-stop on-board happy hour
Whenever I have an extra €500 to burn and fly Estonian Air, I always find myself thinking: “the people on this plane might start convulsing if they don’t get a drink soon.” Why not pour cheap booze down their gullets and turn the flight into a party? Everyone loves a good happy hour, especially when surrounded by strangers and headed to or from a stag party.
To further capitalize on the party atmosphere approach, Estonian Air can install a jukebox stocked with 70s and 80s hair-band classics in all of its planes. If an English stag-partier has the opportunity to hear Boston’s More than a Feeling on repeat, he’ll pay any cost to make that happen. Which presents a second revenue stream: offer post-flight lobotomies so that passengers can have Boston’s More than a Feeling permanently removed from their neuro-psychological core.
Teach passengers rude and vulgar Estonian phrases on flights
Most travelers hate the feeling of being in a foreign country and not being able to communicate in the local language. Estonian Air should convert its plane cabins into classrooms and teach passengers horrendously offensive phrases in Estonian during flights.
Not only will Estonian Air customers delight in their ability to communicate with Estonians upon landing, but residents of Tallinn will find the massive surge in foreigner beatings a welcome source of entertainment.
Dispatches from the first No Creep Crawl
Not many people realize that our upcoming No Creep Crawl isn’t the first. We organized the first No Creep Crawl last year, just after forming Comedy Estonia. We don’t talk about that first No Creep Crawl very often: while no one was (seriously) injured, the whole ordeal is somewhat of a bad memory for everyone who participated.
But since we’re only a few days from the sequel,
I have decided to release some never-before-seen video footage of the original No Creep Crawl. I wasn’t able to capture everything on video, but I did film a few clips from throughout the night that highlight some of the mistakes we made last year.
19:45 – Pre-gaming
Not many people paced themselves for a full night of pub crawling last year. This is a video of Bubba, a comedian that used to perform with us before being deported from Estonia for an incident that happened on a different pub crawl.
20:13 – Drink Bar
As we’re doing this year, we started the No Creep Crawl at Drink Bar last year. This was our first mistake: I didn’t realize that a lot of people would be at Drink Bar that night to watch some weird game involving a lot of players chasing a round ball and spontaneously falling to the ground and pretending to be hurt (I think it’s called Sucker). Anyway, a fan of one team said something about the other team, and a debate over the merits of each team took place in the finest British tradition.
20:48 – Vali Bar
The second stop on last year’s No Creep Crawl was Vali Bar. We didn’t stay very long: a large group of “regulars” made it clear that we weren’t welcome there. To be honest, being around that many old people was really uncomfortable.
21:19 – St. Patrick’s Pub
The night started getting weird in St. Patrick’s Pub when we ran into a British stag party. I’m used to seeing stag partiers harass women, so it was odd that this stag party was more interested in getting the groom-to-be’s clothes off.
I guess none of those people had watched this video prior to coming to Tallinn.
22: 34 – Nimeta
As the night wore on, some of our pub crawlers began to get a little tipsy. Oleg, a pub crawler who was visiting Estonia from Moscow, was one of them. Although I didn’t get any footage of Oleg that night, he sent me a video of himself at work the next day.
A few of our American pub crawlers left the party at Nimeta: specifically, one woman who was traumatized by a confrontation with some birds.
23: 08 – Hell Hunt
Our next stop was Hell Hunt, which was quite packed by 23:00. Hell Hunt attracts an international crowd, which I enjoy when I’m feeling homesick and want to interact with some of my countrymen. I took a few minutes to speak to other Americans at Hell Hunt.
A few British guys on our pub crawl decided to start socializing with members of the opposite sex. Unfortunately, their approach wasn’t very successful.
00:18 – Club Hollywood
Along with the self control of a few British men, the No Creep Crawl ended at Club Hollywood that night. Having never been to Club Hollywood before, I guess I didn’t understand exactly what kind of a club it is. Needless to say, the No Creep Crawl ends at Balou this year.
NB! The pre-sale discount for this month’s Stand-up Comedy with Louis and Eric ends this week! Buy your ticket now for just 10€.
13 things I learned about British Royalty from watching the Royal wedding
England is a class-centric society: everyone is aware of each other’s social standing. The British Royals represent the highest point of the social pyramid, which is probably why the entire world was captivated by the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Their wedding was a brief burst of illumination onto the normally arcane aristocratic class in the UK – and, during this brief burst, I learned 13 things about the fancy British royals.
British royals love to high-five, but they hate making physical contact with the lower classes. Thus, the “air high five” is used instead.
Much like the T-1000 from Terminator 2, British royalty are made of liquid metal and can shape-shift at will.
Royal men are extremely paranoid about their zippers being down. Not so for commoners (Kate’s dad).
Thomas More was beheaded for in 1535 for refusing to submit to Henry VIII’s Church of England. Since then, priests have been forced to wear arrows on their shirts pointing to their heads.
In Royal circles, peeing on a gate in front of the Queen is not considered disrespectful.
The Royals find mosquitoes extremely annoying.
Members of the Royal entourage are prone to sharting.
A Royal is only allowed to smile when making direct, intense, unobstructed eye contact with another Royal.
Unless held firmly in place, a Royal’s head will tilt backwards to facilitate looking down upon commoners.
Royal men are considered fashionable if they attach little girls to their right sleeves and let them dangle in the air.
The ground Royals walk on is pristine and coated with red carpet; for commoners, it reverts back to its natural dirty, grayish hue.
Much like the Bloods and the Crips in Los Angeles, Royals divide themselves into two gangs based on color: Light Goldenrod Yellow and Baby Blue.
Because they cannot socialize easily outside of the Royal class, certain norms regarding dating and relationships are relaxed for the Royals.
NB! RSVP to Comedy Estonia’s No Creep Crawl on May 12th!
Choose your own adventure: A summer day in Tallinn
You are awoken by a strange sensation: thin banners of sunlight stream through your bedroom window, warming your face. You think at first that nuclear Armageddon is at hand — you consider which of your family members you’ll eat first to stay alive. But then you realize that something far less probable has actually happened. Summer has reached Estonia.
Not wanting to let the perfect weather go to waste, you immediately get dressed and head outside. Mobs of tourists continuously pass by the front door of your Old Town apartment, speaking a wide variety of languages.
An overweight Finnish man wearing a leather jacket approaches you and asks, in Finnish, where the nearest bar is. It’s 9am.
What do you do?
So you want to spend your summer vacation in Europe?
How splendid! A summer vacation in Europe will be a fabulous experience that you’ll cherish for years. Travelers from the United Kingdom, Canada, United States, and Australia visit Europe each tourist season without incident; however, some visitors have problems adjusting to the subtle differences between Europe and their homes. This guide aims to assist travelers in enjoying their time in Europe without experiencing confusion or embarrassment.
How to speak Estonian like a true Tallinner
Having lived in Tallinn for nearly a year now, I’ve become aware of a style of slang that doesn’t exist elsewhere in the country. Unfortunately, not many people seem to have a proper grasp of this special vocabulary: in fact, I sometimes think I’m the only one speaking it.
The basis of Tallinn slang is brevity: Tallinners are in a rush, and they want to say what needs to be said as quickly as possible. This is usually accomplished by dropping the first syllable of a word. For instance, when Tallinners greet each other, they don’t say Tere! – that’s too long and boring. It’s what my Grandmother might say to me if she knew any Estonian. And knew I live in Estonia.
Tartu vs. Tallinn: The CouchSurfing Creep Reach test
Having lived in both Tartu and Tallinn, I’m asked all the time which city I like better. And like all loaded questions with an obvious best answer, I simply tell whoever is asking what I think they want to hear. I don’t feel qualified to judge the cities against each other because my opinion is biased: in Tartu, I lived as a student in a brand new apartment with a balcony overlooking the Emajõgi. In Tallinn, I spend eight hours a day in a cubicle, and my first apartment was located next to a whorehouse.
It’s the year 2050, and Estonia is one of the 5 richest countries in Europe
“Õpetaja, what is a time capsule?”
“A time capsule is a box full of things from the past, Pr11t. Someone from our school buried this box here in the year 2011. Isn’t that exciting, class? We’ll be seeing artifacts from the past today!”
Õpetaja Johnson’s young class shrieked in excitement as the school’s android groundskeeper dug furiously through the frozen dirt. Õpetaja Johnson shivered and struggled to remember the last time the temperature had dipped below 25C in January. She questioned whether this whole concept of global warming had any real science behind it.
6 characters I see every day on the Tallinn trolley
Being an environmentally-conscious citizen (read: too poor to afford a car), I take public transportation to work every day at 8:30 in the morning. And every day, I share a trolley car with the same six characters – not necessarily the same people, but the same walking stereotypes that put my 45-minute journey somewhere between “six-hour layover in Riga airport” and “fully invasive root canal” on the tolerability scale. These are the names I have given them.
The Yuppie-in-Training
Decked out in a Baltman suit that looks like it was stolen from a used car salesman’s closet, The Yuppie-in-Training is a 20-22-year-old college kid who usually hops on the trolley at Vabaduse Väljak and gets off near TTÜ. To distract himself from the lesser elements of society surrounding him, he reads the news on his iPhone – or, more frequently, his Nokia iPhone equivalent. Ask him about the state of the NASDAQ OMX Tallinn or a recent merger and between Finnish and Norwegian scrap metal companies, and he’ll blather on effortlessly. Ask him about his plans for the weekend, and his response comes less quickly.
Never in my life have I seen more young college guys wearing suits than on the Tallinn trolley. Since they always get off at the TTÜ stop, I have to wonder when computer science became a discipline with a dress code other than grease-stained t-shirt and jean shorts.