checkerboard

Everything moves to the piece concept, with 23kg limit per bag.

Even in international business class, it seems, overweight charges will be due on pieces weighing between 23kg and 32kg. And on domestic Brazilian sectors, before long, they'll start charging per piece, from the 1st bag. And at that point, even the extra allowance afforded to OneWorld Emeralds and Sapphires will be called into question.

https://www.latam.com/pt_br/comunica.../novas-regras/

Unless fares fall in a measurable way (which is hard to imagine and impossible to verify), it's hard to see an upside here for the traveler...

MfromL

Sad, but from the press release it is not LATAM Brasil the one that started the move, but the Agęncia Nacional de Aviaçăo Civil (ANAC), the supervisory agency of Brasil's airlines. If you check their new rules, in 2018 there will be a complete deregulation of rules, so airlines will decide how much to charge.

checkerboard

Well, they might like to blame ANAC for this, but the regulation changes, as far as I understood them, didn't require airlines to charge for luggage, or oblige them to offer lower weight limits. Rather, these changes by ANAC removed previous regulations about minimum check-baggage allowances.

Just because these customer unfriendly changes are now legally permitted doesn't make them necessary.

And while, theoretically, these charges will make lower fares viable and improve access to air-transportation, in practice, I suspect we'll just end up paying more, in total, for the same services already on offer.

RIAL

Black Signature lost one of its perks (extra bag for each family member)

checkerboard

To prove this point: Azul just released their new baggage policy, and unlike LATAM, they've elected to leave fares & checked luggage allowances as is, while adding a Hand Baggage Only fare category for those who can travel light.

jlarroulet

You're absolutely right, de-regulation doesn't force anyone to change anything.

BUT, if an airline has been offering 32K only because it's mandated to do so by law, as soon as that law stops being effective anyone who was allowing 32K "against their will" so to speak, is obviously going to stop doing it.
Keep in mind that LATAM has a hybrid business: they are very willing to transport cargo in the bellies of passenger planes to increase yields. Allowing 32K per passenger has a huge opportunity cost (almost 3 tons of cargo on a 300 passenger aircraft, assuming one bag per person, could be possible by reducing the allowance from 32K to 23K)

Azul doesn't have that kind of mixed passenger/cargo business (it may eventually haul some cargo on a couple of flights, but it isn't part of their core business operation), so the opportunity cost is less and it's an opportunity to differentiate their product and appeal to people who are actually in need of those 32K allowances.