Originally Posted by
golfingboy
The DOT does not forbid interlining, the DOT still allow the airlines to continue to do what they have been doing for years. The only change is that the appropriate fees must be disclosed and remain consistent throughout the journey. So, I agree with you, the DOT is not telling the airlines how to handle our luggage and assumed that the airlines will do the right thing. Unforunately, they chose to come up with a new customer unfriendly scheme. Now, the DOT has another issue they have to come up with a modified regulation to correct the airlines' shrewd behavior. Why can't they just do the right thing, and by doing the right thing will not require any additional legwork as they have been doing the right thing for YEARS. Yet, AS decides to point fingers at DOT as the cause for the change, when in fact, the new DOT's policy will have little to no impact on how the airlines check luggage, which is a blatant lie on AS's part.
To avoid this mess, the DOT can remove the latter part of the new regulation, but continue to require the airlines to properly disclose the fee schedule for checked luggage. When the customer books his/her ticket they can review the baggage charges and decide if they accept and acknowledge that they will be expected to pay the relevant fees they can continue through the booking process. If they feel the fee is too high, they have a choice to not book the ticket or book with a different airline. So, if I book an AS ticket operated by DL, then AS SHOULD disclose/inform me of DL's baggage fees [which is $5 higher than AS I believe], so I don't show up at the airport thinking I will only pay $20 and be upset when the DL agent asks me for $25.
I would like to see the DOT implement two additional rules to correct the issues caused by this rule:
1) Require all airlines who have a baggage interlining agreement to through-check bags regardless of whether they are on the same ticket or two separate tickets
2) The passenger shall receive the most generous baggage allowance and fee schedule due to that customer as allowed by any carrier involved in the ticketing, marketing, or operation of any flight in the originating itinerary.
#1 would address the issue in this thread. The only defense the airlines would have would be to all turn into Southwest and not allow interlining, and that won't happen, because then their ability to sell connecting travel would be significantly diminished.
#2 would address the issue brought up previously in the AS forum, which is that it is now possible under the new rules for an AS elite flying on an AS flight to have to pay a baggage fee if they bought the flight as part of a codeshare itinerary on another carrier on which they are not allowed any free luggage. (I specified "the originating itinerary" so that any baggage allowances from connecting but separately-purchased tickets won't affect the baggage fee schedule; that would make it far more difficult to program the computer systems to correctly calculate the baggage fees.)