What's not to like about baggage fees?

I agree, I like to travel light. It is only fair that people have to pay for excess baggage. It costs the airline to transport this stuff and it will keep costs down for the rest of us.

Good point. I can live with paying for one’s own weight carried on. What I don’t understand is how this concept is not carried over into group dining experiences. I pay my own check and am constanty amazed and appalled by people who think that they should get the most expensive thing on the menu because the cost is going to be divvied up by the number of peple eating. Says something very negative about the individual, IMO.

I agree, I always travel light.

I travel only on Southwest Airlines. no baggage fees, except for my wife…..uh oh.

I wouldn’t complain if the airfare for a tiny seat wasn’t so much already. They are making TONS of money on ticket purchases alone. They shouldn’t make you pay for your checked bags, simply limit the weight and the number of bags you can check. I mean they already have the space on the plane for the baggage it’s not like they have to reserve room for your bag. My point is they make plenty of money already.

I disagree. The ticket prices have stayed the same from when there were no baggage fees. So baggage fees are just an added fee.

As for people all being charged the same, the airlines had a maximum luggage allowance for free before so people with four steamer trunks were already paying more than you were.

I agree, but there are some caveats.

I think that all baggage should be treated the same when it comes to costs, as long as that baggage doesn’t require any special handling.

I would love to travel with my bicycle. I could put it in a case so that it is no more difficult to handle than any other piece of luggage. Yet all the airlines I’ve looked into will charge me a huge premium – usually around $200–300 per round trip-for choosing to take my bike with me. So I don’t take my bike.

@crisw It is awkward to handle a bike.

I can see both sides. I think in a way it discriminates against women who need more liquids. Foundation, hair mousse, hair spray, lip gloss, face lotion, and on and on. Some things I cannot get in a small size, and cannot be drammed out of the bottle into a smaller one.

I understand that having to check baggage means paying an employee to deal with the baggage, but it seems to me $25 a bag is unjustly high. Maybe if it were reasonable, more of what seemed to be an honest price, people would not be so annoyed. Plus, ticket prices did not go down, if anything they have gone up in my market, and my market was already extremely high, 11th in the nation last I read on the topic. The surcharge for bags is just extra profit. It must be, because if you have a Delta credit card you don’t pay for checked bags, and I doubt they are taking a loss on Delta credit card holders. It is extreme greed. Make it $5, be happy with the extra profit, and stop gouging I say.

yeah i agree, flights are pretty cheap in the UK, but baggage fees must be made clear in the advertisment for the flight, no-body likes hidden costs, but generally i agree.

People dicking around while boarding, cramming huge carry-on bags into the overhead are a nuisance and the checked bag fee has increased that behavior. I hate the baggage fees for that.

If you believe everybody needs to be charged a piece rate, that should go for passengers, too. A 100 pound woman’s ticket should be ⅓ that of a 300 pound man, right?

@jaytkay I almost mentioned about heavier passengers paying more, but I think the checked baggage fee is more related to employes handeling the baggage. My luggage is the same size whether I check or not, it is only about the liquids for me. There are stil fees for bags over a certain weight, that has not changed.

@marinelife

I don’t think it’s more awkward than any other piece of luggage if it’s in a bike case- which the airlines typically require, anyway.

Spirit now charges for both checked bags and any carry-on that doesn’t fit under your seat! We recently flew on it and it was amazing how empty the overhead bins were. It did make getting on and getting off easier but it seems like double dipping.

I don’t mind the concept of paying for what I use and wouldn’t mind even paying by the pound. I’d ship myself UPS if they’d let me.

I think it’s the undisclosed nature and the fact that baggage fees aren’t figured in when you’re comparing flight prices. If you don’t have a certain airline you always fly, then the different fees (including bag fees) for different airlines can be tough to compare and stay on top of.

For a while there it seemed many were seeing how much they could cut out of the base price, so they would appear to be the cheapest, then recouping those fees when you were actually traveling. Showing up to the airport only to find out you owe $100 in bag fees and need to slide a credit card right then is the wrong way to handle it. People responded badly and hopefully it’s changing.

@funkdaddy Ha! Actually, the way air travel is getting these days, shipping yourself UPS might be a better way to travel.

I would go along with a by weight fee, although the airlines already charge for two seats for anyone who cannot fit in a single seat. It is a little less costly in fuel use to fly a lightweight person than a heavy one, but they figure the average load and it doesn’t vary much, so just charging by the seat makes ticket proces a whole lot easier to comprehend.

@JLeslie I would not be a bit surprised if the cost to handle a bag at both ends is not somewhere close to $25.

@JustJessica The airlines are making a decent profit now, but they operated for several years at monstrous losses and many went broke. I won’t begrudge them a profitable operation while times are good so they can get through the next dip, when fuel prices spike again or another major terrorist event frightens half their travelers away again.

@janbb A reasonable charge for a carry-on over a certain size would probably make sense. It would limit the abuse of carry-on space that @jaytkay correctly notes is a real slowdown in boarding and disembarking now.

@ETpro How? Let’s say the baggage guy gets paid $20 an hour (I doubt he does) and he loads maybe 100 bags an hour (I totally made up that number). $25 per bag, $2500!!! Pay a little for the gas to move the luggage, which they have to pay for anyway, whether the plane has 50 checked bags or 80.

@JLeslie If the guy gets $20 an hour, his company pays roughly twice his hourly rate including supervisory costs, insurance, vacation, holidays, retirement benefits and so forth. On top of that, there is hiring and training investments. Add in the cost of buying and maintaining the RFID tracking system now used to route baggage, all the RFID tags, the forklifts and the tram cars that they use to transport the baggage, the conveyor belt tractor and its driver, the handlers in the plane’s cargo hold, the clerk that helps people who have problems with checked baggage and the desk, space and computer they use, the warehouse for storage of unclaimed bags, the time it takes the gate attendant to tag and handle bags onto the baggage conveyor. Bear in mind that all the physical assets used must be replaced on a regular basis as they wear out or are superseded by improved technology. It can’t be cheap. I have no clue what the actual cost is. I am sure the airlines do, and that their charge is set to cover all the costs and then some. That’s how business has to work. The fact is they have to recoup all those costs in some fashion. If not in a checked bag charge, then it has to be in ticket prices. And that penalizes those who don’t use the service.

I am 5’1 and not very strong. It’s awkward and difficult for me to get a bag in the overhead compartment.

So I used to make a habit of checking a bag that I could have fit in the overhead bin so that I wouldn’t block the aisle trying desperately to get my bag over my head and into the compartment.

Now everyone in line behind me has to wait for me to deal with my bag, since I’m not gonna spend $25 for their convenience.

@nikipedia I can understand that. With luck, you might get assistance from a cabin attendant who is taller. But they are always super busy during boarding.

@ETpro but some of those costs were already there before the new TSA rules. There is more baggage now, we did not go from zero to one huhdred though. I still think it is gouging, especially since I pay nothing to check my bag on Delta because I have their credit card. I realize I pay a fee for the card, but still. Like I said, if the fee seemed more reasonable, I would be ok with it, and I am ok with charging customers who use the service more money than a passenger who doesn’t, if it seemed honest, but even with your explanation it seems like the airlines are taking advantage. Did you see the episode of Undercover Boss about Frontier Airlines? That just pissed me off. I’ll have to check and see if I can find it on line. My girlfriend works for Delta and she said they are making huge profits, I need to verify that, and they are horrible when it comes to pricing. It is a fortune for me to fly, because there is practically no competition in my market, it is not about costs, it is about capitalism and greed. My flight to Florida, or DC, or NY, name a city, the flight is full, less than 2 hours, is over $300 typically with advanced ticketing. A few years ago I used to book flights to Gulfport, MS, after Katrina, cheapest flight in the $700’s from Memphis! If you drove to Little Rock $220 flying through Memphis, same airline.

@nikipedia I ask a man near me to help me get my bag up and down if they are not swift enough to figure out they should be offering.

I think this should be the full episode of Undercover Boss I can’t seem to get it to play on my ipad, let me know if the link doesn’t work if you are interested in watching it.

It’s a great idea. It will save kerosene.

@JLeslie What you need is a couple of the low-cost carriers like Southwest Frontier and Air Tran to start flying into your airport. You might find that paying to check baggage on one of their flights is a great bargain. The link worked just fine for me. That was an impressive show.

@ETpro Yes, that was my point, no competition, so Delta can charge crazy prices. Once we get Southwest, which hopefully is coming when they buy Airtran, it will probably only help to the non-stop cities like Dallas, we’ll see where else they go non-stop. Right now if I am willing to connect I can fly significantly cheaper, because there is some competition, but non-stop Delta has almost a monopoly, except for American Airline hub cities, and a whatever other hub cities the 3 other airlines that fly out of this airport go to. For a short time American went to Laguardia non-stop and it was great, but they stopped the route.

Glad you liked the show. Did it disgust you that the CEO showed his castle of a home with an indoor basketball court, and all of those employees took a pay cut? I want to know if the executive level took a cut? And, how that one woman checked people in and loaded the luggage? The think I like best about that show, I watch it every week, is it shows how hard people work. I have worked on my feet with the public in very physical jobs, and behind a desk, and people who have always worked behind a desk have no idea how hard it is to work a physically exhausting job where you have to be in front of the public, in my opinion.

@JLeslie Yes, I noted that and the disconnect between his apparent deep faith and the prosperity gospel, which isn’t exactly what Jesus was preaching when he told the rich young ruler to sell all that he owned, give the money to the poor, and follow him.