The Upside of Baggage Surcharges

Travel

In a previous article on baggage surcharges I predicted that it wouldn’t be long before other airlines followed AA’s lead in charging extra for the first piece of checked luggage (most U.S. airlines were already charging $25 for a 2nd checked bag). As it turns out, U.S. Airways, United, Northwestern (among others) have announced baggage surcharges on a passenger’s first checked bag.

An American Airline’s spokesperson estimates that up to 80% of travelers on their airline won’t even be subject to the fee for a first checked bag due to a convoluted scheme that precludes many passengers with varying mileage membership status, fare types and flight types from paying the fee. It’s pretty likely that this fee schedule will evolve over time though to include many of those passengers currently excluded.

There are a couple of good things to come out of this new policy, however. Firstly, as baggage surcharges are a newfound source of revenue for U.S. air carriers, they now have motivation to actually enforce carry-on size restrictions. If you have ever been peeved by the people holding up boarding because they are trying to stuff their trunk into the overhead bin; relief, in the form of “luggage police” is forthcoming. The “luggage police” are to be stationed in strategic areas and will be “assisting” passengers with checking their too-large-for-carry-on items. It is unclear at this time what this assistance will be, though it is assumed that it will come with the $15.00 fee. Credit card processing equipment is being added at gates – with the assumption that passengers may need “assistance” with paying their surcharges. I’m not too enthused about the idea of luggage police, but I am glad to see that the carry-on size will be enforced – as abuse of this has too long been tolerated and is an inconvenience to everyone flying. Another positive thing to come out of the new surcharge scheme is the cessation of AA’s $2.00 fee for checking bags curbside. To the savvy traveler this means – well, if you know you’re going to be paying a fee anyhow – check in and print boarding passes the day before your flight and drop your bag off curbside and pay the stupid fee and be done with it. I guess the same applies if you fall into a category that wouldn’t pay the surcharge – only now you can take advantage of curbside check-in for free! Why bother standing in long check-in lines if you can avoid it?

To most people, baggage surcharges are probably quite the annoyance, and I can understand why, but I still say that I’d rather see this than sweeping increases in airfares – though the carriers keep threatening to do exactly that. Even if they do, air travel has been a bargain for quite a few years and will likely remain so. If Ryan Air, Easy Jet, Virgin and even Southwest can all offer low cost transport and still turn a profit then the other carriers should be able to figure it out without being perpetually in bankruptcy.

Will @ July 21, 2008