Comments on: Questions raised by AA’s JFK checked-baggage chaos

By: Jupper

Jupper — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:41:55 +0000

Charging fees when not getting a bag to its destination at the same time as the owner would probably get ugly *very* fast. Currently those costs are included in your ticket.

If luggage is lost more often, and the costs of retrieval and delivery go up against what was projected, overall costs go up, just like fuel costs. Those costs should be in the total ticket cost, but airlines think they can get away by adding fee upon fee, I highly doubt US and EU legislation will work in their favor (look at the “penatlies” when suffering flight delays in the EU, those apply to US carriers too!)…

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:46:59 +0000

This may be a view of the future.Lost bags as a revenue source.

Anonymous sources are reporting that US Airwaysis considering two new lost baggage fees.
If your bag is lost on a flight, there will be a new $50.00 search fee for the airline to endeavor to retrieve it.
This is to cover the additional cost for personnel to actually look for the bag.

In addition there will be a $75.00 fee if the bag is actually found. The additional fee is needed to cover the additional cost of transportation for the lost bag to be reunited with its owner.

I suspect that if this rumor is true ,most of the other US based airlines will follow suit.

By: Carrie Charney

Carrie Charney — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:18:09 +0000

In Sept., ’06, I was meeting my daughter and family in Newark for a flight to Paris on Continental. I was originating in Newark and they were connecting to the flight from Baltimore. When we met at the gate for Paris in Newark, the gate agents told us, that since my granddaughter and son-in-law had been no-shows at BWI, they were no longer on the flight to Paris. With marked boarding passes and a lot of hassle, we did finally convince the gate agents at EWR that no one had missed his plane, but not before all our reserved roomy bulkhead seats had been given away. We all were put individually in scattered middle seats, far away from each other, including my 3-yr old granddaughter, who is mildly autistic. Thank goodness, once on the plane, some very understanding flyers did change seats with us. Before all was “righted,” we asked what would have happened to our luggage. We were told that our luggage would have gone on to Paris before, being returned. In this case, we were happy about that.

By: Hapgood

Hapgood — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:57:15 +0000

Since reuniting passengers and lost luggage involves no inconsiderable expense for the airline, it’s clearly unfair to burden the airline’s beleaguered shareholders and embattled executives with those costs. The ordinary fees for checking bags (even with the recent improvements to the fee schedule for more than one bag) can’t possibly cover the full cost of providing this special labor-intensive service.

So I propose that airlines charge a fee (a “Special Customer Service Fee”– I’m sure the marketeers can come up with a better name) for tracking and returning lost bags. The fee needs to at least cover the full costs of providing that service plus any associated overhead, so it should be subject to yield-management pricing determined at the moment it’s needed. The higher volume of lost baggage during holiday periods means more overtime and/or temporary employees, so recovering lost baggage during the Christmas season should carry an appropriate premium.

Similarly, a massive glitch like the one at JFK involves very high costs to the airlines. Not only do they have to pay employees overtime (or hire temporary workers) to sort the luggage manually, they have the expense of fixing the software glitch itself and possibly dealing with the demands of Customs and Security officials in various countries. So the Special Customer Service Fee for passengers who got caught up in the JFK glitch should be priced to fully reflect the costs of rectifying the problem.

In our “nation of whiners,” some passengers are surely going to complain about “adding insult to injury” and what they in their ignorance perceive as inherent unfairness. But with the current economic reality, any reasonable person would conclude that forcing innocent shareholders to absorb those expenses would be an injustice of monumental proportions. So it’s only fair that passengers should bear the cost of providing the service.

And I’m sure airline marketeers could put the correct happy spin on it: The Special Customer Service Fee helps airlines improve their service and saves customers money. Passengers whose luggage arrives on the carousel should not be subsidizing those whose luggage somehow does not arrive. The Special Customer Service Fee also gives passengers more choices; they can choose to buy replacement belongings or they can pay a fee that is probably less than those costs. So the fee actually saves passengers money!