Ed

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.

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 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.

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.

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.