Baggage Fees and Airfire increases

First, you might have heard about American charging for even one piece of luggage. $15 for the first bag, $25 for the second bag, $100 for bags 3-5, and $200 for 6 or more. By the way, that's per way. So double that for a round-trip. (Source: NYT)

Yes, they have to find some way to make money (not that they will). But I see nothing but disaster in two ways. 1: People won't check bags and will take bags on the plane which means even longer security lines and jammed overhead compartments; 2: People will flee American Airlines (the fact that they are cutting the number of flights might make that decision even easier.

If I were in my old job running PR, I would tell the airline look seriously into announcing the fact that we are not charging for 1st or 2nd bags as a counter promotion. That would be smart. However, there is a reason why airlines are going bankrupt. The people in charge are idiots.

Like the Idiot of the Day: United Airlines.

So in the Dallas Morning News, United responded to this baggage charge with bits of news of their own.

United Airlines overnight has raised fares by as much as $60 for round-trip tickets, Bestfares.com CEO Tom Parsons said Friday. If this airfare hike is matched by the other major carriers, it would be the 12th successful increase out of 17 attempts since December 20, 2007. Travelers flying over 1,500 air miles one-way between markets without a low-cost carrier have seen their airfares jump by $340 roundtrip in the past five months

So who will be affected?

Bestfares.com said that United hiked fares $20 round trip for flights up to 400 miles, $40 for 401-750 miles and $60 for flights over 750 miles. "Many of these airfare increases only affect cities not served by a low-cost airline such as Southwest, Virgin America, JetBlue, Spirit or Frontier," Bestfares.com said.

Translation: We are going to punish people who aren't served by a low-cost airline. But don't worry. They will find a way to make it for all routes by the end of year (my prediction).

But the second bit of news from the DMN article.

The Associated Press quoted United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski as saying United was "seriously considering" charging passengers on domestic trips for their first piece of checked luggage.

Translation: If people accept American doing this, we will do it by August 1.

MSNBC has some predictions about flight cost in the near future.

• This luggage fee is a step too far. AA will eventually have to back off of the fee.
• Problems with controlling carry-on luggage will increase exponentially.
• Delays at TSA checkpoints will increase as more passengers bring more baggage through the inspection points.
• Delays at the boarding gates dealing with luggage arguments will further delay AA flights to less than a 50 percent on-time rating.
• Other airlines will adopt a wait-and-see approach to this dramatic fee increase, forcing AA to rethink their fee structure.
• The Transportation Department will force airlines to disclose these fees in their advertisements. This will allow other airlines to simply raise airfares without raising the total advertised cost of the trip. AA will eventually (perhaps before June 15) roll this fee into their airfares.