=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/chronicle/archive/2003/01= /22/ED232389.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, January 22, 2003 (SF Chronicle) Coffee, tea and fees GIVEN WHAT a passenger goes through these days to just get on an airplan= e, you would think the battered traveler would be due a free meal -- even a bad one -- once he or she got aboard. It's kind of like a tenacity award for fighting freeway traffic, long baggage check-in lines, inevitable flight delays and, finally, the narrow airplane aisle to wedge into a seat. You counted on the free meal, even if just for the perverse joy of complaining about it. But the airline industry has fallen on hard times and there's a move afoot to make passengers pay for in-flight meals. America West has set the tone by being the first to announce it will charge from $3 for a box lunch to $10 for a hot chicken dinner. The airline calls it an experiment. But now, Northwest Airlines plans to start a similar "test" this week. In the end, airlines won't save much on cuisine because meals are only about 3 percent of their budgets. But, our trays grudgingly in the upright position and wondering what's next, we won't complain about the food as long as they reject any notion of installing pay toilets.=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2003 SF Chronicle