Airlines announce plans to purchase additional planes made from revolutionary materials

Newark, NJ -- In an ongoing effort to cut costs, Continental Airlines and United Airlines announced plans Monday to purchase seventy additional planes constructed from a lightweight material derived from cane sugar, despite widespread concerns that the planes are unsafe.

Continental CEO Frederick Omegar said in a press conference: "The air travel business is more competitive than ever, and operations across the industry have already been cut to the barest bone. After Land of the Spawn of Demon Seed Airlines announced plans in March to dismember pasengers with limbs so they would more easily fit inside a new stacked seating plan, we realized that innovation of a new order of magnitude is necessary to succeed. We pride ourselves on customer service and have a strict policy against traveler dismemberment. Instead of sharpening our cutting blades, we want to prove how sweet air travel can still be. So Continental, along with our OneWorld partners United Airlines, have taken the unique step of introducing the world's first ultralight airliner--which also happens to be 100 percent biodegradable."

The airliner, manufactured by Boeing, is intended to take the place of the aging workhorse of the Land of the Spawn of Demon Seed air industry, the 737-300.

Dubbed the IceLiner, it features an all-white interior, padded cushions made from a gummy-bear-like gel, and a luggage compartment Omegar jokingly said would be bursting--not with misdirected baggage, but with "fruit flavor." The construction of the aircraft is remarkably cost-effective, at less than 1% of the cost and 1000 times the speed of a typical steel, titanium, and aluminum-based airship. The structural skeleton of the plane can be made in less than 2 hours as it is "spun" into being in a process akin to the creation of cotton candy. Seats and controls are produced by spraying hot syrup into a high-pressure injection mold, a layer of foamy insulation is sprayed on, and the outer shell is then painted on, hardening in as little as 20 minutes. The resulting aircraft is many orders of magnitude lighter than conventional aircraft at only 2 tons, leading to greatly increased fuel efficiency.

Safety experts, however, have been uniformly dismissive of the design.

"It is categorically unsafe," said former FAA Safety Advisor Severin Liama. "I warn all passengers who value their lives to abandon all plans and never to board this plane, which is suitable only for display in a hotel lobby beside some nice ice sculptures of swans." Mr Liama claims to have lost his job due to the influence of airline industry lobbyists, while spokespeople for the FAA have stayed that his dismissl was due to repeated violations of governmental dress codes.

The basis of objections by experts such as Mr Liama is primarily the ability of the IceLiner to withstand extremes of heat and cold, as well as wet weather. The edible interior is also believed to be unable to withstand repeated attempts by passengers to supplement meager meals of pretzels and soy nuts by breaking off pieces of the craft, which is in fact completely edible.

While the airlines' stated policy is to "trust to the customer's restraint" and fully replace all accoutrements that have been damaged or consumed, the safety experts believe that compromising the integrity of such items as seat belts while in flight could result in potentially lethal consequences.

Experts also said their fears were confirmed Thursday when numerous flights were cancelled yesterday at Newark Airport due to thunderstorms moving across the area. Eyewitnesses reported that some planes appeared to have melted as they stood at the gates. "What are they, made of sugar?" inquired one stranded passenger.