Well here is at least one heartwarming story about a skycap who served many years at the airport in Beaumont TX...

http://www.redorbit.com/news/busines...eon/index.html

What do those reading this think a fair tip is for a bag? Aside from the fee one pays to the airline, airport or whoever, what is the additional amount one should be expected to give for safe, careful, friendly service for your bags?

Is it less curbside and more if your stuff is trucked inside for check-in?

$1/bag is reasonable I think. Less is just not practical, more than $3/bag I think is overtipping. I am not one who buys into the next statement much, but when I was reading this, I was thinking, maybe we have conditioned skycaps to expect a higher tip.

I believing in paying for service and conveinence, and tipping for appropriate service. I tip the barber, the bartender, the waitron, the cab and car drivers, even the skycap, as necessary. I don't tip the coffee barista, the sandwich maker at the deli, or hertz bus driver. Double standard?

Preach it, brother!

Who cares. Then he can go to college like I did and bust his ... and make a better living. Its not my fault that he chose this life. If he doesnt want to do his job then he should quit. I just wont check bags unless absolutely forced to. I dont trust someone who cant read to get my stuff where it needs to go.

As I understand it the USA Skycap work is sufficiently lucrative (due to gross overtipping), and all in cash, that the contracts to supply these services at airports, at least those in major cities, have fallen into the hands of organised crime.

From outside the USA we wonder how, with aviation having developed as a no-tipping area worldwide, this airline facility managed to develop as an exception.

Curb-side check-in certainly is not basic service and you pay extra for that. (Twice actually.) Being able to drop your bags of in a reasonable amount of time is.

I think this skycap thing is a good example that dispproves the general claim that tipping results in a higher level of service. It obviously doesn't (especially if there is not really anything you can do good or bad: take bags, return baggage claim). Good management does assure a high level of service to all customers.

HTB.

Or maybe it does....if the tip is large enough you don't end up with garbage in your luggage!

Wow, I want to be a skycap if I can make $70,000 per day! Uh, what's the mostly cash part? Are you talking about young starlets throwing their bodies at you for a tip?

It has been that way for many many many years here in the US.

The few times i've used the sky cap they have been rude whether i tipped them or not. I always try and walk inside the terminal to check my bags the normal way

Utter nonsense. There is a statutory minimum for tipped employees which is $2.13 per hour (and higher in some states) regardless of how much in tips the employee earns. If the amount of tips does not equal the minimum wage for non-tipped employees, the employer must make up the difference.

Do you have some evidence to support your allegation?

$0.00. My opinion is, and always has been, that a fee should be charged for every product or service commensurate with the cost of providing it, including the payment of an appropriate living wage to the person actually doing the job.

I can cope with the idea of tipping for very good service, but this incident absolutely appalls me, not to mention the possible implication at customs if something illegal rather than just trash had been placed in the bag.

I hope the porter concerned has been sacked.

Oh? Are you certain of that? That would contradict the signs I have seen plainly stating that skycaps and valets work for tips ONLY.

Edited to add: One must consider the working arrangements. Are these people contractors? That is an entirely different ball game.

When I was a kid (early '80s), I remember being in the car when we dropped my father off at the airport. I have the impression that, at the time, it was standard for a skycap to meet you at your car and ask if you needed help with your bags--they would unload the bags from your trunk and take them from there. Somehow this service has been transformed into a second checkin line that just happens to form out on the sidewalk, but they're still expecting the same tips. Am I missing something?