fee for carry-on luggage

redpaint

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OK since the government is taking over everything else when are they going after the airlines for adding even more stupid fees to an already high price to small of seats and crowed planes. We already have to be treated like criminals just to get near a boarding gate. That last part does not bother me as much in this day and age. but this nickle and dimes from the airlines has to stop.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinio...nbundling-brings-539659.html?cxtype=ynews_rss


Air travel loses more Spirit: Airline 'unbundling' brings fee for carry-on luggage.
Opinion blogs


By The Palm Beach Post

Posted: 6:20 p.m. Thursday, April 8, 2010


Are the executives at Spirit Airlines secretly also on the payroll of a competitor? Or of Amtrak? The company's announcement this week makes you wonder.

Like most carriers, Spirit charges customers who check luggage, a service that once carried no extra fee. Now, however, Spirit will begin charging between $20 and $45 for carry-on bags that don't fit under a seat. The airline graciously has agreed to exempt umbrellas, diaper bags, strollers, food (for the flight) and books from the new rule.

Spirit attempts to justify the fee by claiming that it takes too long to board flights, with passengers attempting to cram more, and larger, carry-on luggage into the overhead compartments. Though some travelers won't trust any luggage to an airline, the main reason for this behavior is that people want to avoid the checked-bag fee.

Those fees, by one estimate, are generating roughly $700 million a year for the industry — even more than the revenue from flight-change fees. Spirit, which has a small presence at Palm Beach International Airport but a large one at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International, thus intends to capture the luggage revenue one way or the other.

But there's a larger consumer angle. For most of commercial travel's roughly 70-year history, passengers paid a fare that covered everything, from the flight to baggage to food to blankets. Spirit calls the move part of the industry's general "unbundling" of prices, saying that those who don't need certain services — "amenities" is far too generous to describe modern air travel — on a flight should not be "subsidizing the choices of others." CEO Ken McKenzie says, "Bring less, pay less; it's simple."

A spokesman for the Air Transport Association said in an e-mail Thursday that "the unbundling train left the station a long time ago. Airlines are committed to the lowest base fare. Unbundling allows this. Like other businesses, customers pay for the services they want to consume." Most travelers, the spokesman is saying, just look for the cheapest fare, especially online. Rather than raise all fares slightly to include all services, the airlines — especially newer "discount" carriers like Spirit — use the low base fare as a come-on.

Airline profitability has been an especially pressing issue since deregulation in the late 1970s. But Southwest, which doesn't charge bag fees and whose flight attendants actually seem to like their jobs, just finished its 37th straight year of profitability. Cruise lines don't charge based on how often passengers hit the buffets. Spirit basically is pitting consumer against consumer. In trying to influence fliers' behavior, many airlines are worsening the endurance test that is modern air travel.

For the flying public, this is one more indication that "cheap" does not always mean "value." Other airlines are waiting for consumer reaction before deciding whether to follow Spirit's lead. Our suggestion? Don't.
 
flying in planes makes me cranky. the last fight I was on, the woman in front of me put her seat all the way back, fell asleep, snored like a buzzsaw, and I had no cheetos to stick up her nose.

life isn't fair, but snack food can be yummy.
 
Well, I'd never even heard of Spirit Airlines before this (maybe this is part of their revenue problem?) but I know I defininitely won't be flying with them anytime soon . . . .
 
Give it a few years, they might start charging by the pound to fly. How long do you think an airline would stay in business if you had to have weigh in to figure your flight cost?
 
flying in planes makes me cranky. the last fight I was on, the woman in front of me put her seat all the way back, fell asleep, snored like a buzzsaw, and I had no cheetos to stick up her nose. life isn't fair, but snack food can be yummy.

Was she Black?

Try a "Boiled Peanut" the next time...
 
So don't fly. The airline business will lose money and learn to adapt. What's the problem?
 
Give it a few years, they might start charging by the pound to fly. How long do you think an airline would stay in business if you had to have weigh in to figure your flight cost?

Well, they weigh the luggage, so why not weigh the person and luggage together? And charge by the pound............:)
 
The stuff people carry on is getting pretty ridiculous.
I wonder if a goat would fit in the overhead(?)
 
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