Two specific comments: First, Ms. Rooke may be willing to pay for onboard amenities, but tons of people are not. Case in point: those airlines that have installed inflight Wi-Fi are generally underwhelmed by customer usage. Folks expect stuff to be free and even though the price points are relatively low (though the carriers and their wireless partners do need to experiment more with the price-volume relationship), they are not buying.

Second, in my experience (I led the catering team for a large airline a decade ago), packaged-goods and other suppliers are often daunted — to the point of throwing up their hands and running away — by the headhurting details that accompany everything in the airline business. To use an example from Charlene’s idea trove, the FAA and its Canadian, European and other counterparts would need to certify the Dove gel dispenser and every other piece of equipment that would be installed on each aircraft. That certification is a really cumbersome process. And if you add in the reality that airline management teams are 30-50% smaller than they were a decade ago, you quickly see that you don’t have folks to chase all those wonderful ideas. Deep sigh, but that’s the world we live in.