Originally Posted by
CyBeR
He did indeed partially hit it, but in a different way than you think. His first point first was free, the second was speedy. If you would be able to check a bag for free and you got it back within minutes of arriving at the carrousel, you'd probably check bags more often than you do now already. I posit a third point: if the likelyhood of bags going missing or being pillaged by TSA (I think baggage handlers are more trustworthy to be honest) is reduced to zero, even more hesitation would be gone.
But in reality, for leisure travellers, only the 'free' part is really of importance. They don't care if they have to wait a bit and in the pillaging thing really isn't all that frequent (it's never happened to me), but those extra few dollars really make a difference in people's willingness to check their bags. If stuffing it all in a carryon allows people to save $15, they will!
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My point is that airlines already have the 'free' part down for a lot of travelers, even leisure, via frequent flyer memberships, whereas they don't have the speed part figured out. Until they do, behavior will not change regardless if you pay, not pay, or get paid to check your luggage. Charging for bags is actually a recent occurrence, whereas oversized carry-ons, and lots of them, has been an issue for many years. This behavior was driven by lack of on-time performance (time waiting at the carousel), not a cost decision.