The Tonight Show is on way past my bedtime, so I’m really glad that Terry Maxon at the Airline Biz blog makes a point of posting the jokes and jabs Jay Leno makes about airports and air travel.

All those extra charges and service cutbacks the airlines are announcing are making it way too easy on the Tonight Show writers. From Leno’s monologue last night (June 17, 2008):

“If you’ve been to the airport at all the last couple of weeks, you know the airlines are now charging people to check your bag. One bag, you have to check it now, and they charge you $15 to check a bag, 15 bucks, and 30 bucks if you ever want to see that bag again.”

There’s more….

Like many other airlines grappling with record high fuel prices, Air Canada has announced flight and staffing cutbacks for the fall and winter.

According to an airline press release, “This will result in a decrease in staff levels of up to 2,000 positions across all levels of the organization.”

I hope one talented Air Canada flight attendant gets to keep his job. On a totally-packed Air Canada flight recently, I listened in awe as this flight attendant calmly reasoned with a very tense passenger who would not allow anyone to touch his carry-on bag in an effort to make room for other bags in the overhead bin. The passenger refused to move the bag himself and would not allow the flight attendant to do it.

After about ten minutes the still calm attendant “won” and quickly found a way to fit three other bags in the bin. He received a round of applause. And as he walked away I heard him tell another flight attendant that, given a few more minutes, he probably could have found “a much better place to shove that man’s carry-on bag.”