As much as we want to whine how air travel has been lately with all the fees that they tack on and may tack on, we have to remember that the airlines are in the business of making money...... Anybody who does not want to pay luggage fees have the option to ship their luggage, but we all know that it will cost more than $25 to ship it, or take the bus or train or drive to your destination. So its your choice. If you ask the airline, they probably does not want you to have any luggage to check in because a lighter aircraft is cheaper to operate. So if we don't check in any luggage, we don't pay any fees. Less luggage, the aircraft is lighter and if the aircraft is lighter, they spend less fuel which means cheaper to operate. Who knows, they might lower the price of the ticket. I recently flew to the Philippines. When I bought the domestic flight tickets, it states on the ticket how much weight in luggage you are entitled for free, lets say 10 kilos, anything above it, you pay.

A lot of the flying public have the attitude of being entitled, but we have to remember that everything around us is about business and in business, its all about turning a profit. And a lot of the flying public already knows about the baggage fees before they go to the airport. So if you don't want to pay baggage fees, pack light or don't check in any luggage, or fly Southwest airlines, or get a United card, or Delta card or the card of your favorite airline because the credit card of that airline will allow free baggage. Hope this helps.

Yes, that helped. We've never had the "you're overentitled" or the "airlines are in the business of making money" post on Flyertalk before. I think this one is the first.

And, and fat people should pay more too. Why haven't we ever discussed that yet?

And so is Juan Trippe. He turned into Alec Baldwin.

What worries me is what will happen to business fliers who (like me) are forced to travel coach, for any duration of flight, via the cheapest carrier? Our travel system gives me very little if any flexibility apart from cheapest, so I will be dragged down into the cesspool. This is when I personally start flying a desk full time, or find a more flexible employer.

We're already dragged down into the cesspool. Our corp system today nudges you to the cheapest coach flight, with pretty limited ability to resist the "nudge" and book something else.

Perhaps the good news is this: businesses are smart enough to realize that at the end of the day, negotiating a good systemwide contract discount with majors like UA, DL, or AA is a smarter solution than forcing all of their employees to go out and price every no-frills airline for every individual trip. So "the system" won't be nudging you to Spirit or some sort of "Ryanair America". Of course, all of the majors tend to head into the same cesspools in unison, so that won't help you escape industry trends. But I have to think that the big carriers will at least have some better options and *some* perks for the 50,000-100,000 mile fliers.

In my experience today, I have the hardest time getting a ticket when I *want* the non-alliance carrier. e.g., A short cheap Southwest nonstop for a trip to downtown Dallas... I have to get a human involved and explain why I don't want the "system" options.

I think this comment is emblematic of why some people think the 1K DYKWIA business travelers have the entitlement attitude. timfountain, I don't know you and you may not fall into that category but this comment brings that to mind.

It took the post to be more of a concern that an airline with the Spirit/Ryanair model could establish a national footprint and a big enough presence in reservation systems that some people would have no choice but to book it.

Say two or three carriers go to an extreme fee model. Spirit grows over the course of a decade, Ryanair America arrives and gets huge, and a carrier like US, being the 4th legacy, decides to break from the pricing model of the big three and shoot for something in the middle. Assume for this argument that these carriers all decide to list fares in a reservation system that your company can access.

Then you go to query, say, CHI-WAS for your business trip.

You corporate system returns the following, all nonstop and in your time range:
- Spirit, $20
- Ryanair, $30
- US Airways, $100
- United, $150

Assume the reality of your travel is that you'd be hit with a mix of fees that effectively made all four of them $150.

I interpreted what timfountain was saying is that if they're all the same at the end of the day, he should be allowed to pick United...but the system would only see the base fare and force him into the Spirit cesspool.

I point out a hope (whether founded or not) that big firms will still strike corporate discounts with big airlines like United that can extend some level of discounting throughout a huge alliance, so maybe the system would still allow the "preferred" carrier to be booked.

I didn't take it as a 1K/DYKWIA thing.

That would be fine if there was enough space for everyone to bring a full size carry-on. There isn't. So charging for checked bags causes too much carry-on, and you end up checking bags for free. So why not just check them for free anyway.

It might be because gate checked bags are limited-release, but I find that immoral unless the bag is being checked because of the wrongdoing of the passenger, not the wrongdoing of the airline.

Neil

I didn't interpret it that way but, assuming that in this hypothetical example, if the business traveler had to buy up to the $150 ticket anyway, wouldn't the travel experience be similar since you'd be getting bells and whistles on Cheap-O-Air?

need more scheduled charters...

$3 in 1980, after adjusting for inflation, would probably be more than what most airlines are charging now for a checked bag.

Do you consider charging $25 for a checked bag to be "punitive levels"? It's probably still less than the marginal cost of providing the service, as can be seen by checking shipping charges on FedEx, etc.

Which fees exactly do you think are opportunistic and have reached punitive levels?