US Airways raised its baggage fees yesterday, setting off what’s sure to be another round of me-toos from its competitors. Luggage fees are almost pure profit, and because there’s almost no pushback from passengers, carriers are getting away with these new surcharges.
But why?
I wondered about that after getting an email from reader Diana Choles, whose daughter was forced to pay an extra $260 in excess luggage fees on a flight from Rome to Greece, even though the bags were underweight.
Why aren’t customers standing at the gates with pitchforks and lighted torches?
Here’s what happened to Choles’ daughter:
It was midnight and everyone was so tired. She got to the check in point and was told she was allowed one carry-on and one check-in [bag]. She had an extra small bag — all her bags where under 50 pounds — but a ticket agent then told her it would be $260 for the extra bag.
I am having a hard time believing that this was the case. That was more than the ticket itself. I have a feeling that she was taken.
Her daughter was taken, but she is in good company. We are all being taken.
Let me answer my question about why more passengers aren’t protesting the fees, like Choles. I think they’re just grateful to have their luggage.
Let’s go back to last year, when fee innovator US Airways decided to start charging for soft drinks. That didn’t go so well, and the airline eventually reversed itself. Apparently, having clean water on a plane wasn’t considered optional by most air travelers.
But luggage fees — ah, that’s another issue.
Imagine pulling up to the ticket counter, as Choles’ daughter did, and being told that you had to fork over $280 (or, for that matter, $2,800). If you don’t, you’re told, you have to abandon your suitcase.
From a customer’s perspective, the airline is holding your luggage hostage. It’s saying: Pay or you’ll have to toss your personal belongings into the trash.
Who wouldn’t fork over the cash?
Now, I don’t begrudge the airlines the opportunity to make money. But not like this.
This “unbundling” madness must end. The Transportation Department refuses to do anything about it, apparently for ideological reasons, so we have to take this fight to someone who will: to our elected representatives.
Airlines must not be allowed to hold our luggage hostage. Maybe the government needs to prevent them from doing it.
(Photo: Noël Zia Lee/Flickr Creative Commons)
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
I would highly recommend if customers want to avoid outrageous baggage fees, fly Southwest. Southwest Airlines lets travelers check two bags free of charge and fares are generally affordable. If you have to fly another major airline, such as Northwest or Continental, I would go carry-on.
If the flight from Rome to Greece was not ticketed with a North American airport in the itinerary, then the standard rest of the world rules apply – 1 checked bag weighing not more than 20 kg. Depending on the airline she might have been allowed a personal item such as a handbag, briefcase or laptop computer. If she was traveling on a discount airline they’re merciless with the baggage rules. It sounds to me like two carryons (not allowed) or two checked bags (extra fees apply). Outside North America, excess bags are charged by weight, and the fees are pretty steep.
Either fly SW or other airlines that doesn’t charge bags fees, do all carryon. Or elsewhere, avoid American airlines (use Asian/Large European airlines.)
when american airlines see losing customers while their competitors are gaining them, they eventually get the message, or just disappear off the travel map
Here’s what happened to Choles’ daughter:
It was midnight and everyone was so tired. She got to the check in point and was told she was allowed one carry-on and one check-in [bag]. She had an extra small bag — all her bags where under 50 pounds — but a ticket agent then told her it would be $260 for the extra bag.
I am having a hard time believing that this was the case. That was more than the ticket itself. I have a feeling that she was taken.
Her daughter was taken, but she is in good company. We are all being taken.
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NAME ONE AIRLINE THAT DOESNT HAVE THE BAGGAGE RESTRICTIONS, BAGGAGE COSTS AND BAGGAGE RULES ONLINE? Everyone seems to be soooooo internet educated, except when it comes to RULES that COST THEM additional monies.
Frank–you do not have to yell. And to answer your question: If the young Ms. Choloes was flying a low-cost carrier, their website might be in their original language but no others. So, if the daughter is like me, looking at a website in Greek will not be telling me much since I do not speak nor read Greek.
I think we should influence the airlines with our purchases, so as others have said, either only use airlines that do not charge these fees and/or learn to travel light (or at least as light as possible on the trip you are on). I am more for free markets than having the government intrusions.
Why are airlines raising baggage fees?
It’s a source of Revenue that the industry badly needs to survive the winter, low season months. Traditionally, the season where profits are few, if any. With a recession in this country, job instability, etc the airlines will both further reduce capacity and will have to sale seats at a bargain to reduce anticipated losses over the winter months.
THAT’S WHY.
Tim August 28, 2009 at 10:25 am
Frank–you do not have to yell. And to answer your question: If the young Ms. Choloes was flying a low-cost carrier, their website might be in their original language but no others. So, if the daughter is like me, looking at a website in Greek will not be telling me much since I do not speak nor read Greek.
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lol……i’ve always typed like that. Seriously, it’s a CAPITAL LETTER.
Anyway, I checked numerous websites for international airlines and found that the ones I clicked on had the option of changing the screen to ENGLISH.
http://www.airlinenumbers.com/
AND the option of calling a number.
HER failure to check the airlines’ RULES came at a high cost. $280 dollars. I’m sure that lesson wont be repeated.
I hate to keep harping on this, but the escalating nickel-and-diming and restrictions (see the other article about seat back pockets) are just more reasons to consider destinations that don’t require flying.
Airlines are going to keep adding fees and making flying more miserable, since their executives believe the only way they can survive is to extract more from their paying customers (and their employees). The TSA is going to keep adding dubious “security enhancements” that make traversing the checkpoints more difficult and unpredictable, since their executives are intent on taking full advantage of their blank check to expand their authority. No amount of complaning or protest will influence the people who make those decisions. They’re well insulated with gatekeepers whose job it is to keep such distractions from interrupting their busy schedules. In the case of the TSA, I suspect their leaders actually want passengers to be angry, since it proves the effectiveness of their “tough security measures.”
The one and only thing we can do is to “just say no.” There are times when there is no alternative to flying, and we’ll just have to accept whatever the airlines and the bureaucrats impose on us with as much grace and good cheer as we can manage (we can’t do anything about what they impose, but we do have some control over how we react to it). But often we do have a choice. And that’s when we should at least consider destinations that do not require flying.
Some people (Frank?) may honestly believe we have some sort of “patriotic” obligation or duty to support the airlines in their struggle for survival by flying as much as we can. Even though they “reward” us by doing everything they can to make the experience as miserable as possible. That’s rubbish! If airline executives truly believe they can survive and prosper by degrading their product and abusing their paying customers, they don’t deserve to survive. If the “legacies” run themselves into the ground, someone else will emerge to replace them. Hopefully they will have learned from their predecessors’ mistakes.
Why didn’t the daughter shove the small bag in the one she was carrying on and be done with it? No airline I’ve ever flown screens the size of what is being carried on.
Yeah Lyn,
I agree and have done that in the past. If her other baggage is underweight, why not put the excess item in one of those bags. One can even take out extra clothing to make room for the last bag and put the clothing on to get through to the flight.
K.
Some people (Frank?) may honestly believe we have some sort of “patriotic” obligation or duty to support the airlines in their struggle for survival by flying as much as we can. Even though they “reward” us by doing everything they can to make the experience as miserable as possible. That’s rubbish!
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I’m NOT saying that. But, flying for a couple of hundred bucks, coast to coast comes without all the amenities used to come with flying. That CHEAP FARE has come at a great cost to other’s in this industry. Call centers went overseas for cheaper labor. Maintenance went out of the country for cheaper labor and parts. Employees were hammered in bankruptcies. Pensions lost. Benefits reduced. Contracts, pages and pages RIPPED OUT. Fewer employees at the gates, check-in counters. Fewer Flight Attendants onboard. Inflight FOOD disappeared. Magazines, playing cards and wings all gone.
There’s something wrong when you can get on a airplane in NYC and fly to Florida for $79 bucks, but you pay $50 bucks for the cab ride from Manhattan to JFK. All these cheap fares have reduced the experience of flying to bare bones. I dont think it’s miserable as you state. I fly hundreds of flights per year. Mostly uneventful.
With all the REDUCTIONS that I mentioned above, what really is left but to unbundle and nickle and dime. Imagine the bleeding without it.
And, I tell you what, all those labor groups that took BIG cuts in the early part of this decade, want IMPROVEMENTS to living wages. Many contracts are up in the industry and expect the skies to get unfriendly with labor disputes. Management better SQUEEZE some more out of the flying public, because many want a long overdue RAISE.
I can’t imagine flying and not knowing what the airline’s baggage policy is. Surely if that $260 charge exists, it is specified at the website, isn’t it? If not, she should have legal recourse. I still haven’t seen any reasonable argument as to why an airline should be required to ship luggage for free. It is an extra service that costs the airline extra to perform. If you don’t want to pay, choose an airline without a charge, pack light, ship by another method, or don’t fly. I’m philosophically against the government micromanaging all these things. Let the market decide – and evidently most people are deciding it’s not such a big deal to pay a little extra for baggage, or to choose to pack light and avoid the cost.
As an elite frequent flyer with US Airways, I can check in three bags without fees. According to American Airlines, the baggage fees affect only 25% of the passengers. If you do not want to pay baggage fees either fly enough with a single airline so that you do not have to pay fees or fly an airline with no baggage fees.
Also, passengers need to pay attention when booking their reservations online where it clearly states about the extra baggage fees.
In regards to the flight from Rome to Greece, since the US based airlines operate a hub & spoke system, it is my guess that the airline was NOT a US based airline. Having flown several international flights, the international based airlines have even stricter baggage (carry-on and check in) regulations (less weight, smaller carry-on size and etc) than the US based airlines.
The real problem is the infrequent flyers who want low fares. These individuals want to fly across the country for $ 200, want first rate service, want to check the kitchen sink and etc. The airlines may have not made the best decisions in the past, most of their business models are wrong and need to be changed and they are far from perfect but airlines do need to make a profit.
Since the name of the game is low fares, the game that airlines play is to have the lowest fare so that it will appear first in a fare search engine and etc. Therefore, the airlines remove items (i.e. drinks, baggage fees, meals, etc.) from the fare and charge them as add-on and etc. in order to have the lowest fare.
Just because airline has a baggage fee, they could still be the lower than an airline like Southwest that doesn’t charge a baggage fee. Recently, I flew from PHX to BWI, the fare from US Airways was $ 60 cheaper than Southwest. Since I am an elite frequent flyer with US Airways, I was upgraded to First Class upgrade as well as having a priority security lane at PHX and BWI, priority check-in and boarding, choice seats selections, priority baggage handling, no checked baggage fees, guaranteed seating, priority standby and stand-by fee waived. If I wasn’t an elite frequent flyer with US Airways and had one bag to check, it will be worth to me the extra $ 40 ($ 50 check bag fee + $ 50 check bag fee – $ 60 fare difference) to fly US Airways in order to have seat number.
So, Choloes had a checked bag, a carry-on and a second bag, all under the max allowed…Why didn’t she just put the small second bag inside the larger carry-on? That’s what I do! I carry around with me a large assortment of portable computer electronics in a small “man-bag”. Before boarding, I shove my man-bag in my carryon, remove the small computers and place them on the belt separately. I never get charged for the second carry-on!
After spending a wonderful week with my parents in Durango CO, it was time to head back to the east coast, back home…
When we arrived at that little commuter airport in Durango, it was discovered that one of our bags was over the 50 pound limit and the other was under! So, being smart, we had arrived early and had time to open both bags and move some of the souvenirs from one bag to the other. AFter a quick re-packing job, we were ready to board! No problem!
@frank,
Your statement about the country in a recession is true, but the airlines would not need to nickle and dime us to death if they, 1) ran more efficiently and 2) made their executives kick-back some of their astronimical salary!
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/041809dnbusairpay.39cc38f.html
Ed
Go to facebook to sign up for this group. http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=no+baggage+fees&init=quick#/group.php?gid=111555053213