Hasta La Gadget!

Troubled airline JAL has taken to commendably eco tactics in its efforts to reduce overheads and return to profitability.

A typical flight attendant’s uniform set of jacket, skirt, vest, blouse and scarf each costs around 30,000 yen (about $360) to have made. When you have thousands of cabin crew and new uniforms being issued every three years this can really add up. Previously old uniforms were collected and destroyed, since it would be dangerous for airport security to release the materials to outside companies (no matter how much the cosplay businesses offered!).

[Images via Mainichi]

However, some two thousand attendants have left JAL during 2010 as part of its restructuring procedures, leaving their uniforms as they went. Rather than wasting all this material JAL decided, reports J-Cast, to recycle the collected clothes as new uniforms for remaining employees.

Apparently this kind of saving can be dramatic in its results. Through these kinds of strategies JAL’s estimated flight attendant uniform costs for 2010 are set to be halved from 40 million yen (about $480,000) to “just” 20 million (about $240,000).

At first glance this campaign seemed to be another example of the growing gaming travel services, where fans of a game get a chance to visit the real locations that are the inspirations for their favorite levels.

However, in fact it’s a normal New Year campaign for leading travel company H.I.S., fronted by popular otaku idol group AKB48. These (very) young ladies seem to be everywhere, including making an appearance at the Kohaku, the NHK New Year’s Eve music concert show that is one of the most-watched programs in Japan. They were also one of the top twenty products of 2010, according to Dentsu.

It is definitely proof that they have moved into the mainstream, though their charms may still seem opaque to outsiders. On the surface they are a multi-member girl band who dance and sing, dressing in a cute but still risque way, dexterously balancing sex appeal with childlike innocence. In other words, an otaku idol band.

Their managers are pretty astute, though, and have their eyes set not just on the yen from their diehard fans, but from wider consumers too. One interesting recent step is that they now have an official YouTube account broadcasting music videos of their songs, unusual in the Japanese music industry.

And now 16 girls from the group are fronting — in requisite cabin attendant uniforms — this Hatsu Yumei Fair (”first dream fair”) campaign for the most mainstream travel company in the land. H.I.S. appear to believe that the AKB48 member’s pulling-power is mostly with people not possessing the biggest wallets, since the campaign’s strongest advertising is for reduced trips (apparently down, appropriately enough, to just 48 yen). Examples of these offers include Taiwan, Hawaii, Guam and Seoul, all of which are also safe and predictable travel destinations for Japanese tourists.

I’m not yet wholly convinced that the consumers buying AKB48’s CDs or photo books include anyone but the typical idol-loving male, yet their allure is apparently now strong enough to sell other people’s products.

Meet the Surly Long Haul Trucker Deluxe. If you like to travel and ride, this may be your next frame.

The Deluxe is a special, plane-friendly version of Surly’s famous touring frame. The deluxe-ness comes from a pair of S&S couplings fitted as standard. These stainless-steel couplers let you split and reassemble the bike to fit in a travel-case, but they add very little weight (8oz or 227-grams) and don’t affect the stiffnees of the frame.

The Deluxe is also made to use 26-inch wheels instead of the usual (and larger) 700c wheels. This has a couple of advantages. First, you can fit the wheels into an airline-maximum sized case without deflating the tires (although maybe you shouldn’t be taking tires onto a plane fully-inflated). Second, 26-inch tires can be had anywhere in the world that you can find a bike shop.

The frame has mounting-points for pretty much everything: cantilever brakes, derailleurs, three sets of water-bottle bosses, fenders and even a spare-spoke holder. The rear dropouts are vertical, and there are routings for cables.

This frame replaces the current S&S equipped Travelers Check, which takes 700c wheels and has a horizontal dropout (better for fixed and single-speed). It will be available in spring 2011, for around $1,000.

Surly Long Haul Trucker Deluxe [Surly Bikes via Urban Velo]

See Also:

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