+1 ^
IMHO an unnecessary meddling into commercial affairs of airlines.

Clearly, two categories of people will end up paying more:
1) Who travel light..
2) Who are elite FF and already have adequate baggage allowance

As someone who most travelled to Europe from India, I was amazed at the amount of luggage (and the utter crap in them) that people checked to the US. Especially on the ULH flights like DEL/BOM-NYC this must cost AI and CO a lot of money.

The DGCA may be should not dictate which airline can charge whatever fees, however DGCA should mandate that airlines clearly put a disclaimer that this airline charges for the 2nd bag, before ticketing. This would allow some flyers to look at Air India or Jet (or may be the middle east carriers too, unfortunately).

And they also prevent carriers from charging YQ. I like this meddling.^

on the simple theory that most if not all the crap costs more in the states than it does in india (such as masala from indian stores). Not to mention carrying a plastic mug along because US toilets don't have mugs or health faucets as standard equipment.

[QUOTE=hserus;17356220]on the simple theory that most if not all the crap costs more in the states than it does in india.

If you include the cost of bringing the stuff to the US from India, buying from the US seems like a rather attractive option...

That said, I guess that the whole point of this policy is to encourage people to buy stuff in India and take it out of the country.

Congratulations to GoI for creating a policy which encourages exports!

you dont get that type of people acting in an economically rational manner .. all they see is 10 rupees vs $5.95 for a pack of, say, garam masala. They just get the cheapest possible ticket (so $100 less for a 2 stop 6 hour longer flight is just fine) and don't know or care about baggage fees till these hit them in the wallet.

[and airlines flying out of india are usually lax about collecting excess fees or denying overweight baggage if the flight isn't full, at any rate it saves a lot of arguments with pax].

Perish the thought of eating local food .. even in a lower cost type place like KL, its a real education listening to two people ..... about how the local food has too much coconut in it, and discuss who is next to fly back from india with a few kilos of pickles etc.

well the 4 years I lived in the US my local indian grocer had everything your cooking needs can cover imported from all over at very reasonable prices. In fact some clearly print on the label that the ingredients were grown stateside with some tagline that read 'made like your mother did with pure unadulterated ingredients from the US' :) since I no that purety doesn't really guarantee taste (see the story about the panipuriwallah earlier this year) I can't confirm or deny such statements :D:D

yes but i defy you to find any indian store that sells masalas at 25 cents a pack :)

Several people who go stateside on work assignments try to live extremely cheaply, jammed into squalid flats and eating instant noodles / fast food .. on the principle that every dollar saved is a whole 48 rupees saved.

very entertaining thread here that I just googled up .. http://www.happyschoolsblog.com/how-...ase-us-travel/

http://aeroblogger.com/2012/02/28/lu...india-tickets/

It's nice for once to see policies going in the reverse direction (i.e. decreasing fees). Perhaps they are making so much money on their branded products that they are willing to take a hit on luggage fees in order to appease customers:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/bu...pagewanted=all

No. They did this because they had no choice but to do it. No other reason.

Stealth is the issue
 

They could have done that, instead of instituting baggage fees,. Fares ares visible, bagage fees are stealth.

Haven't see others do it yet - like UA and AF - which still shows 1st bag free and a charge for the second bag. Any ETA for others to fall in line?