Airline Bag Fee Rant and Proposal
 

I'm a very considerate flyer when it comes time to packing my bag and I even use my scale to ensure that it meets the airline weight requirements. I firmly believe that your first bag should be allowed free by law and any additional bags can be assessed a fee.

Here is why my proposal is important.

1. Passengers with disabilities who have many things to take care of. Why give preferential treatment to military frequent fliers and credit card holders.

2. It would free up the overhead bin space. Simply put I along with other people would not want to gate check an expensive laptop because of the bin hogs.

3. Quicker emplaning deplaning.

Airlines should give us incentives such as priority bag handling for printing our own boarding pass to packing lightly.

Luggage workers are on the clock so why would you add a fee for most passengers and charge people with a disability or those mindful frequent fliers on the low status? To me its extortion and discrimination. The TSA confiscates liquids and steals from passengers.

To me all airlines by law should offer the first bag free and charge $75 for the second bag.

We as a nation need to work with the Federal. Government to allow the first bag to go free. It would speed up security checkpoints.

And if you wanted to take it a step further those with one carry on get to go through the Express security line.

At checkin those with a single suitcase can get weighed at self use scales by the self service checkin machines and would direct you to the express lane. I hate waiting behind people with loads of bags. Families and those with more bags should be processed accordingly.

I want the entire process from car to plane to take no more than 15 minutes-30 mins and being able to arrive 60 minutes before a flight domestically and 90-120 mins for an overseas flight just like pre 9-11. We are so many years after 9-11 that scanners should scan approved liquids and abolish the 3-1-1 rule.

What are your thoughts on this proposal?

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

Government regulation of private industry pricing has repeatedly failed in this country. That is especially true of commercial aviation. Since the repeal of price controls by the ADA in 1984, the total cost of flying has dropped significantly (adjusted, of course for COL).

The other stuff really isn't a big deal. With the exception of the disabled and military, the other categories of early boarders, e.g., F, status, CC, and paid access, are all there for business marketing reasons. The military thing is to make you think the carriers care.

But, it's all a zero-sum game. The real solution is strict carry-on enforcement. While it's true that there may still be a few people left out in the cold at the very end of the process, it won't be often.

I think the first drink should be free but I have about as much chance of getting listened to.

It is absurd to fantasize about government edicts like this. Government edicts rarely help anyone, and never the intended targets.

My own feeling is there are way too damn many laws already. You can make all sorts of good arguments for another new law, but in practice it will continue to diminish our freedoms for scant benefit, just like most of the existing laws.

You're in too much of a hurry.

You want to go plane to car in 15 minutes and be able to arrive at the airport less than 2 hours in advance and get free checked bags. This already exists, its called flying private.

In all reality, I would never support your proposal, despite my desire for air travel to become more civil. Why? Because of ULCCs. While they may be much maligned, they do create downward pressure on airfares even for individuals who don't fly them. Because ULCCs make the majority of their profit from ancillary fees, they are able to offer significantly lower base fares. Yes, most people who fly them end up paying more in fees than they probably anticipate, but for those like me who plan ahead, pack light, and travel smart, they offer tremendous value.

I've flown flown from LAS to FLL to go to the beach for $14 ai, LAS to IDA to go hiking in the Tetons for a weekend for $27, LAS to BLI to go to Whistler for $37, LAS to SAN for a day-trip for $14 just because I could. None of these would have been possible, especially not at that price, if your proposal was instituted. I think it would be better to have a law to require adequate disclosure of additional fees (which I think ULCCs have gotten much better at anyways) than one to prohibit them.

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What rational basis do you have for making this a law?

How about only redheads get free bags? Honestly, for every group you think should be entitled to free baggage, another group is going to come up with a reason for why they are more deserving. What about a disability automatically means that the individual _needs_ to check a bag?

If you gate check a laptop, you're an idiot. Why can't it fit under the seat in front of you.

I'd love to see some statistics on this. I think that luggage is only a minimal contributor to slow boarding and deplanning.

What exactly happens when everyone gets priority bag handling because they packed lightly or printed their own boarding pass?

OK, this is three unrelated thoughts crammed together. But let's focus on the on-the-clock luggage handlers: If the number of bags suddenly doubles, triples or quadruples, then the number of baggage handlers will have to increase exponentially, too. That will result in higher airfares. You know, kind of like the fees you pay now to check bags on some airlines.

Yay...faster checkpoints. As someone who never checks a bag, I'm happy to let all of you suckers instead waste your time waiting to check and claim baggage.[/quote]

Yeah, no. I pay for PreCheck and I'm an efficient packer who carries on my luggage. I don't want to be behind idiots who don't understand how PreCheck works.

So wait, you're now punishing families who check bags by forcing them into slower lanes? I see a government hearing on the topic in the future.

Ha! That's so cute. How, pray tell, do you propose having 2x, 3x or 4x the people checking luggage but believe that the process from car to plane should take no more than 30 minutes for a domestic flight? Has it occurred to you that turnaround times on all flights would increase dramatically because there would be that much more luggage to load and unload?

You've heard them.

I think that new laws should be enacted which:
1. Provide F seating for all.
2. Provide hot meals on all flights.
3. Have people to whisk you from curbside to the aircraft.

And sugar plum trees.

Get pre-check, don't check bags, and park someplace with a frequent shuttle. I don't even have pre and at LAX the longest part of getting from parking to my seat lately seems to be the shuttle to the terminal from the parking lot. Sometimes that part alone takes 15 minutes.

Or fly only out of BUR. You can park in long term parking, walk to the terminal, and be through security in less than 15 minutes.

I'm not sure that first bag free would cause people to carry less on board-- I don't do carry-on only because I'm too cheap to pay for a bag, I do it because it gets me out of the airport a lot faster.

What's this thread about again? Carry-on bags, airport parking, security, families with children, people with disabilities....what?? :confused:

Most airlines create a relatively easy (and often free or better-than-free) path to 1 checked bag. That seems like a decent happy medium to me.

Remember the utopia when everybody checked two bags and nobody stuffed overhead bins or clogged the boarding process while doing so? Yeah, me neither...

I'm guessing that most of the people against regulation of baggage fees do not normally pay baggage fees, due to status, credit card benefits, or employers picking up the tab.

The free market is great, if there is competition. With the recent wave of mergers in the industry, competition is minimal on many routes, and the industry is functioning more and more like an oligopoly. Therefore, government regulation becomes necessary.