No, I'm not checking my $10k in camera equipment because people aren't checking their dirty tshirts.
This really summarizes attitudes perfectly. Except there's no need to actually label anything, no one gives a shit about other people's stuff.
It doesn't, though. I'm perfectly happy checking my underwear and dirty tshirts.
But not my camera gear
For example, if you book a flight from the US to London on American Airlines, redeeming miles, you'll be on the hook for around $10 in taxes. If you book the same flight, using American Airlines miles, but happen to be unfortunate enough to get it on their partner British Airways, you'll get dinged for around five hundred dollars in "fuel surcharge".
Last time I checked, Brazil was the only country where this is illegal.
Let's say you decided to make every airline display how much it costs to fly with one checked bag... well, why did you pick one? What if one airline let's you check two bags free? Or if one gives you free food but the other charges? Has more leg room? Etc...
Pricing transparency laws only help things like "you have to include all taxes and fees for the exact item you are selling"
It doesn't help with requiring a company to include certain extras (like a checked bag or two) with the price. You are allowed to choose how you bundle things together, no matter the pricing transparency laws.
Aggregators are capable of asking what city, date and time, how many bodies, which service class, which seat, etc. and returning your menu of options with prices based on those details.
Yet asking "how many bags" and multiplying that by the airline's rate is impossible?
Of course it requires changes. I suspect those happen now and then.
And transparency is not about informing the customer about charges in the fine-print of a website or a menu card. Transparency is being up-front with the total cost so you make it easy for the customer to make an informed choice.
I wholeheartedly agree that tipping should go away. It's literally a remnant of the post slavery age in America and has a nasty habit of lowering workers wages. Another problem is taking dine and dash bills out of the waiters wages. The waiter shouldn't be paying for deadbeats.
So I agree with your general point, just not on the airline baggage example.
short-name: Tray fee
long-name: You get a foldable tray for seat to use during the flight.
price: 39,99
includes-tax: false
This is basic data modeling, really. Tne real thing would probably have closer to 50 well defined fields instead of 4 because of real-world self-inflicted complexity in the system, but the concept is the same.
That is part of the point. You can also have standard prices to quote: "All fees they charge every customer plus one checked bag should be included in price", for example. Airlines that offer bonuses for free will advertise it clearly. After all, we know when a shampoo bottle includes 20% extra shampoo temporarily - I'm not sure this will be an issue. People know that 2 hotels might be the same price but only one of them offers use of a pool - I'm pretty sure they will look at airlines as well.
I heard this argument many times before but never quite understood the explanation. Could you elaborate on this?
The POS system knows how to calculate the cost of each item, why can't they just out that on the sticker instead,.
However if the sale is online and the company has a presence in multiple states they have to charge based on the user, which they cant do until they know who the user is.
Edit: Just to be clear I wish they would put the final price. Here is a picture I found of Pat's King of Steaks in Philadelphia, they have price tax and total for each item.
https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/03/2c/33/c2/...
I think your real issue is against the increased cost of air travel and the inconvenience it poses for travelers who are unwilling or unable to compromise by trading off luggage for price. It sucks, but it’s not “greedy corporations”; it’s just economic reality.
Is this meant to say that consumers aren't price sensitive? If so, why don't airlines just charge arbitrarily high prices?
Yet airlines keep offering me free baggage check at the gate on full flights. I actively try to avoid checking my bags, but I'm usually in boarding Group 3 or 4, so I'm forced to have my bag gate-checked. I hate it. Most people do. Some even try to untag their force-checked bags on the jetway when they see overhead luggage space, and then get told off because that is prohibited. I've resorted to buying an AmazonBasics underseat bag[1] so I never have to check my bag.
For domestic flights, in my experience few people want to check their bags. (exceptions exist of course, like in your case)
For international flights, checking bags is included in the cost of the ticket.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Amazon161214-Underseat-L...
It’s certainly preferred over the hell of trying to get my bags overhead, and also allows you to wait and be the last person on the plane, minimizing time crammed in a tiny seat.
The amount of cumulative time wasted because of stowing bags is immense.
I see how that's convenient, and I would prefer that too. But not to be passive aggressive about it: I don't want to be part of the problem, so I check luggage when I can.
From other people's comments in this thread I see that most people don't give a shit about anyone else, so I guess I'm an exception.
Me too. Is this determined by just price of the ticket. I don't get how I am always group 4.
- Group 0/pre-boarding is active military, disabled, and infants
- Group 1 is first class & mileage club people
- Group 2 is business class
- Group 3/4 is usually economy
- Group 5 is usually the cheapest basic economy people
You can usually get bumped up to Group 2 by getting the airline's credit card or having a bunch of miles
Guaranteed overhead.
Lol
They do fit in most rows except aisle, but even then, because of their small size, they can usually be made to fit in a nearly full overhead compartment (source: recent personal experience). I’ve just returned from traveling around Europe and I can’t count the number of times I’ve managed to avoid inconvenient situations because I didn’t bring a full size rollabord. I’ve even been able to put mine on my lap on a full bus in Spain.
the requirements (law) specifically states that only YOU may carry the opening mechanism for the case, and it must be a hard case. sure they might ask you to open it, but it will be tracked with great vigor, must be in a hard case, and only you can open it.
Of course some destinations won’t let you have a gun...
I may pay $25-$100 more. But not $3000.
Regardless, paying extra $50-$100 on every flight sounds unreasonably high. $10-20 would be more reasonable.
I'm always carry-on even with my free & priority checked bags thanks to status. For business travel, I like to move quickly through the airport. For personal travel, especially international, nothing is worse than pulling around a lot of luggage like a first-time tourist. Those pebble roads, tight commuter trains, and long step-walks in Europe can be a drag. Last month we travelled 21 days across 5 countries with just a carry-on.
In both cases, the airline losing your bag is a real pain to deal with on any trip – happened a lot to me on multi-connects but much less of a problem on directs.
I disagree. It got cheaper and some of the price savings came as a result of removing the old perks(which are still there, but you have to pay for them separately). By the way, checked baggage was never free. There was always a hidden cost that was not reflected in the ticket price.
>Now everyone wants to fly with a mountain climbing backpack
Airlines have gotten better at designing and running routes in such a way that the airplane is as full as it can be. Also after regulations were relaxed airlines now use the hub-spoke model instead of being forced to do direct flights between two small-markets (and thereby making ticket more expensive), which results in, again, full airplanes. Years ago there was a good chance that at any given time I would fly in a half-empty plane, now it rarely happens. I think this is what you're noticing.
> I'm not checking my $10k in camera equipment because people aren't checking their dirty tshirts.
Occasionally I travel with expensive equipment (e.g. I have a high-end mini-PC) and in those cases I opt to pay $20 for zone 1/2 priority boarding so that I put my stuff in the overhead compartment ahead of zone 3/4/5 masses and therefore limit the risk of having it gate-checked. I like that I am able to make that choice, as opposed to not having the choice.
Once everything is accurately priced and tracked, there's no problem with space anymore. They know how many cubic feet of space they have, and they know what they've charged for.
Free additionals that have direct cost to the the provider but may or may not be useful or utilized by the customer are things for luxury products. Overall, everyone is better off (even if they don't feel better off) by paying for what they actually use. The people that lose out are the people that used to use more than their fair share. If you still like the idea of paying one (higher) price and having things like luggage covered, that's what other classes (like premium economy, business and first class) are for. It's called economy class for a reason...
At the very least, I should be guaranteed to have some overhead space without having to fight to get on the plane as early as possible.
In reality, no one knows the dimensions of their bags until the night before, and that's too late for the airline to tell them "no" or add charges reasonably.
[0] https://www.surfdome.us/oakley_luggage_-_oakley_large_roller...
What the hell am I supposed to do?
I would gladly pay money if they allowed me the usual old 23kg standard.
This is not how airlines are operated. In many other countries you get one or two checked bags included in the ticket.
A strange thing occurs as a consequence: you just board the plane, and then the plane goes.
Do you do the weird not-a-queue-but-queueish-blob-of-people thing? No, because there is not a zero-sum game for overhead space.
Do you do the pay-extra-to-spend-longer-in-the-hell-tube thing? No, because there is not a zero-sum game for overhead space.
Do you spend 45 minutes to an hour fucking around with idiots who are trying to spit in the face of both geometry and physics and falling arse-first onto the nose of good manners? Not at all, flights are typically on the runway 15-20 minutes after the first boarding call. There is not a zero-sum game for overhead space.
When I first flew in the USA I thought "something is wrong with my flight". It took me several flights to realise: this is normal here. And it's maddening.
In every flight I find plenty of people (myself included) that don't want to check in baggage, due to mishandling, possibility of loss, delays at the destination, and/or problems with connections. So even in airlines where you get a checked bag with the ticket, I regularly see all those things you say don't happen. Maybe it depends on which part of the rest of the world. I'm from Spain, for the record. At the Madrid airport you will see plenty of people queuing at boarding gates half an hour before they open. Most Spanish airlines even have a paid "priority boarding" option to board first, so people very much want to get into the hell tube sooner...
It's true that all of this is amplified for airlines that charge for checked luggage, though, so I'd rather they don't charge even if I don't want to check in myself. Competition for overhead space gets absolutely crazy when they don't charge.
My point about carry-on is that in other countries, you are strictly limited in what you can carry-on, and thus you either have to take less stuff or get checked luggage (free or otherwise). And guess what? Everything fits and people can just walk to their seat and sit down, as you described
I fail to see why the US has a system where everyone is allowed to take two giant items, and then without fail half the plane has to gate-check and it causes significant slowdowns and frustration. It’s like smacking your head into a wall repeatedly, wondering why your head hurts, and continuing.
I can see why people don’t want to check; short flights for business as so much faster when you don’t have to wait for the baggage carrousel or lost luggage. But when you’ve got a 50% chance of being checked anyway, everything breaks down.
In other countries, the carry-on limit is strictly enforced. They have metal frames to test the size of your luggage, and if it doesn’t slip in, you ain’t taking it on the plane. And a “personal item” isn’t allowed to be a second bag the size of a carry-on suitcase.
If you have too much stuff, tough. Either take less crap or get checked luggage.
I've recent experience of flying with checked luggage which contained multiple AA NiMH rechargable batteries, spare camera batteries, and on one occasion even a fully-charged 16000 mAh power bank.
Not carry that bag on your flight and leave the airline scrambling to reunite passenger with luggage?
Page the passenger (who is almost certainly airside by that point) and try to get them to come (where?) to repack/deal with the contents? I've never heard of a facility where an airside passenger can temporarily get access to hold baggage once it's been screened. Wouldn't the passenger and the hold bag each have to go back through the relevant screening channel after this interaction?
I've checked batteries dozens of times and never give it a second thought. As it turns out, I had two sets of brand-new NiMH AAs in my checked luggage this morning.
I can tell you exactly what they do as this happened to me ~9 months ago when I had inadvertently left an e-cigarette in a checked suitcase. I was indeed paged (I was airside) to report to a service desk, where the (quite friendly) staff led me through secure areas into the bowels of the airport, where my suitcase was awaiting me on what could be described as an "off-ramp" to the baggage roller system. I was then requested to open my suitcase and retrieve the offending item, did so, and all was well.
> I've checked batteries dozens of times and never give it a second thought
I suspect that if you start travelling through more modern airports with the kind of enhanced screening that got me you'll definitely be giving it a second thought... I also have checked them dozens of times but as screening gets updated it's looking like a thing of the past.
[No snark intended but] can you give us a definition of "modern" so I can compare against where I usually check my batteries from?
OT, but I did once attempt to get a hot chocolate brownie with ice-cream topping through gate security at FRA; the x-ray operator was fine with it but his colleague called the supervisor over. I was eating it (quickly) while she and I were debating whether ice-cream was "a liquid", she really didn't like that. I handed the last 1/10th back :)
Ah, I should have probably said "airports with modern equipment" as I presume this stuff is susceptible to periodic updates regardless of the age of the airport. I suppose it does need a fairly recent baggage management system. For reference, it happened to me at Adelaide airport in Australia, which is about 10 years old. I guess then by modern I mean any first-world airport built within the last decade or so?
As noted I've flown with li-on and everything else in checked baggage a million times too and it was the first time it happened to me, so I assume the mandate is fairly recent.
That story is ridiculous, but makes me wonder what would happen if you tried to bring through a frozen bottle of water?
Not only for stray batteries, it's screened for all kinds of things, including drugs, bombs and other non-allowed items or dangerous stuff.
To my knowledge, if they do find something, you'll have some security guards come up to you and escort you to a separate section of the airport where you will be unpacking your luggage and remove the offending item, then repackage and you can go on (or not if the offense is too great to ignore).
I'm saying I have dozens of personal counter-examples to this claim, including another one from this morning, specifically relating to travelling with checked luggage containing batteries.
Hypothesis #1: maybe the "no batteries" policy is nowhere near as strictly enforced as people think it is?
Hypothesis #2: maybe other aspects of aviation security are nowhere near as strictly enforced as people think they are?
Who knows, maybe it is mostly security theatre?
IIRC the US has the TSA but Airports can outsource to other third parties if the TSA permits it.
I don't see how that question is really relevant considering your bag will be atleast xrayed by one of the two at some point.
1. Open the luggage themselves
2. Remove the item containing the battery
3. Replace it with a note saying that the item was removed
4. Close the luggage back up
5. Put the luggage back on the plane
6. Discard the item
What are you going to do, sue them? Post bad things about them on social media?
If 'X' is genuinely dangerous, then always deal with X as if it were actually dangerous[1]; if X is however not dangerous, stop pretending.
[1] for instance the policy of confiscating >100ml bottles of liquid at airport security "because reasons" then have agents simply stuff these dangerous liquids into one large bin and leave them there at the screening point for hours.
Whether or not that is "sane" or "right" or "wrong" isn't material to my counter-point.
Where is this rare? I have never bought an airline ticket, even in bare-bones economy, flying for business or leisure, with and without status, and not got an included checked bag. This is flying British Airways, United, Lufthansa, Delta, American, Japan, etc etc
Spirit, at least, does the right thing and charges $5 more to carry a typical bag onboard.
I remember being blown away by the service I got on Singapore and Malaysia Airlines. Great food, decent amount of leg room, flight attendants that don't have complete and utter contempt for everyone that isn't in Business class or above, and free alcohol. That is until I realized they weren't that special, the North American companies were just significantly worse at pretty much all aspects of the flying experience. Often times the North American companies with their fees aren't even saving you much money, or none at all if you plan well, so its an easy choice when your flight is at least 12 hours. The dream would be to have them compete and operate domestic flights as well. It would be great to go from Chicago to Dulles on ANA instead of United.
Even if you have elite status with BA, you won't get an free checked bag if you book such a fare[1]. LH are temporarily "as a goodwill rule" allowing their elites and star alliance gold elites to get one free checked bag on 'Light' fares[2].
1. https://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/baggage-ess...
It’s just like binding arbitration clauses. In many industries, like mobile phone service, you can’t “choose” a market participant that doesn’t have such a clause because all of them do. When all, or virtually all (because every airline doesn’t serve every trip pair, even from a given airport), airlines charge bag fees, there’s no choice to bring a bag without some form of up-front investment or having to endure the madness that is the overhead bin zoo.
On the other hand, I don’t know that banning such fees is the way to go either. I suppose I’m mostly just griping that so many things are going to pay-per-everything and the large, advertised number has decreasingly little relevance to the final, actual cost.
I couldn't agree more. What you are describing is a cartel, or, at a later stage, a monopoly-ish entity.
Markets "where the barrier to entry is so high" sometimes snap into existence as a function of what they do, but also sometimes appear simply because it's easier to collude than compete.
Isn't that because the industry is regulated and the government is the actual barrier to entry? Not saying it's wrong, but saying that the market isn't working when you listed something caused by regulation is unfair argument IMO.
I'd mostly worry that adding too many restrictions prevents existing airlines from coming up with innovative programs & business models that benefit everyone by realigning incentives — getting to the gate earlier, checking even small bags rather than dragging a huge roller onboard and holding up the boarding process, etc.
That said, these particular regulations don't seem particularly onerous.
An analogy would be purchasing a PC; savvy folks can save hundreds while unsavvy people trying to do the same are very likely to accidentally compromise on things that are important to them.
I don't think the solution is regulation; I think it's to teach common sense.
That is both inaccurate (with regards to airlines--you can't tell how much of a flat-fee ticket with baggage included is devoted to that baggage, because ticket prices are widely variable by airline and time, so straight-across comparison is not reliable) and . . . well, just awful; "do your research so you don't miss out on cheaper alternatives" is a reality sometimes, but saying that this is a desirable property of an economic system seems like an inhumane and, if taken to extremes, systemically dysfunctional position to take. It seems like it incentivizes deliberate complexity in pricing structures--and the theoretical backpressure against those trends (competition by organizations with simpler structures) seems to only very rarely be the equal of its opponent.
The alternative isn't "hold everyone's hand through all cost decisions"; the alternative is don't make things worse/more confusing unless you absolutely must.
Edit: typo.
You have it backwards. The problem with simplicity is that your options for a PC become Performance, Mainstream and Economy. If Economy would have been sufficient except for the storage, sorry, you'll have to pay +$300 for Mainstream (which also has a faster processor and more memory) even though faster storage by itself would only have been +$100.
There is efficiency in not paying for what you don't need, but it has intrinsic complexity. Or you can just buy Performance, not have to worry about anything, but pay +$800.
Having the simple options available is good because some people value time more than money. Having the complex options available is good because some people value money more than time (or can make a complex decision in a small amount of time).
Having said that, the charges for checked bags are still ridiculous, but only because the fees exceed the airlines' cost for carrying the bags by such a large amount. Fortunately they're likely to be destroyed by the price comparison sites now listing the fees next to the ticket price, which should reintroduce price competition for the checked bag fee and either get the fee reduced/eliminated or benefit the customer by giving those who don't need to check a bag a disproportionate discount.
Or some enterprising airline will realize they can profit from selling the empty space in their planes not being used for checked bags to someone like FedEx to carry packages. Then FedEx will realize they can open a storefront in the airport and charge less than the airlines to ship your luggage and you'll be able to pay FedEx $15 to pay the airline $10 to check your bag, instead of paying the airline $30. Then the airlines will just charge $14.
If you're confident and in fact the entire industry is moving in the wrong direction, then you should probably invest as much as you can afford in an airline that is offering simpler plans. For me, I'll trust that the airlines' leaders are the experts in their own market.
> saying that this is a desirable property of an economic system seems like an inhumane and, if taken to extremes, systemically dysfunctional position to take.
"Choice" (i.e., "freedom") _is_ a desirable property. Sometimes it means people make inefficient choices (per their values); in general, the proper response to this observation is to teach people how to choose efficiently.
I think people should be heavily criticized for making arguments like this -- it's entirely done in bad faith. You're presenting a fairy tale, a piece of advice that is completely un-actionable for a huge majority of people. What is this person supposed to do, when
(a) No such airline exists
(b) What sort of marginal impact can <$1000 (presumably the most that can be afforded for this by the majority of people) even have in achieving actual change?
If anything, complaining about it to others (online or elsewhere) probably has more efficacy than doing the above.
(a.1) Of course there are differences in the complexity of airlines' pricing structures. To claim that all airlines' menus are equally complex is an extraordinary claim.
(a.2) The extent to which it is hard to find an airline with a very simple pricing structure testifies to the economic infeasibility of these structures unless the OP found a market inefficiency (which was overlooked by the entire industry), in which case he should exploit it to the tune of millions of dollars.
(b) Assuming the OP is in fact an airline industry visionary, when other airlines see him making money hand over fist, they'll change their ways.
Perhaps. As I've said elsewhere, another explanation is that it's easier to collude than compete, especially in markets with entry-barrier-induced low participant counts.
The "it came to be this way therefore the market has revealed the optimum" claim misses frequent realities of limited market control/visibility, greed/laziness (i.e. collusion), and intermediate or catch-up evolutionary behavior (i.e. it's quite hard, absent lots of historical evidence often lacking in recent markets, to tell whether something represents a stabilizing optimum or a state of flux as emergent behaviors pursue changing realities, and there are many reasons to presume the latter).
No, they shouldn't.
It has a feature like that for checked bags too, but it says "coming soon".
Having to pay bag fees sucks but then again, before separate bag fees we were still paying them, we just didn’t know how much of the ticket price they really were.
> we just didn’t know how much of the ticket price they really were.
We did realize how much they were apart of the ticket. The definition of what people brought on the plane was figured into by planning at the airline. You can't just pay for more carry-ons and bags than the airline allows. Right now what we have is an artificial price drop and it's being supplemented by fees. (Airlines are pissed that they can't hide the YQ from the price anymore)
This basically forces me (who never checks anything) to subsidize your (I assume) traveling habits.
There are numerous entirely private systems that require such subsidy; are you claiming that any amount of subsidy for others' habits is objectionable (i.e. the libertarian hardline)? Or are you making some other point?
Poorer people can opt out of checking luggage in order to make that visit to a dying relative possible.
Everyone here forgets what it was like when a domestic flight cost the equivalent of $600 - which is out of reach for a lot of people.
Charging for luggage and dining separate from the ticket makes that possible, in part.
Either way, it's still possible to check smaller pieces of luggage, and if most passengers could do that economically then loading and unloading the plane would be a lot quicker, saving the airlines non-trivial costs.
From what you said it's abit like saying that you don't want to subsidize the police via your taxes because you never use them.
As to subsidies: you usually can't control whether you need the police or not. You generally can control how much you pack. My wife and I didn't even pack a check-in on when we took the kid to Disney World recently. Why should I pay more for people who have to have … whatever the hell it is that people pack in a checked bag for a domestic flight.
This helps stratify the market as well, because those who travel light (mainly business people and people who fly a lot) now pay less than they used to. Those who fly irregularly (i.e., tourists) are more willing to pay the fees.
It has been disrupted already ... many times. Some disruptions came as a result of relaxation of certain regulations, such as allowing twin engine jets to fly over the oceans, or not forcing airlines to fly direct routes. There's also the revolution around using deep statistical modeling for capacity and route planning and scheduling. There's the business models of RyanAir and Emirates ... I mean, this industry has changed quite a bit.
Flying is also cheapest AND safest it has ever been (though more uncomfortable). Seems like market forces are working just fine.
Are they though? How come the US doesn't have the equivalent of a Emirates/Singapore quality level airline? You can't tell me there is no demand for that level of service by business folk?
Laymen's explanation - there are a limited number of routes that can physically be established and those who have the routes exhibit rent seeking behavior with only just a small amount of competition. In other words an oligopoly.
Your question is also kind of like asking why HP laptops are lower quality than Apple laptops. Emirates uses its Dubai base to serve primarily lucrative international flights, just like Apple targets the premium end of the market. That doesn't mean that HP is in a market segment without competition, however. Rather, it targets a cost-sensitive portion of the market where people aren't willing to pay extra for quality.
It's not as though the US air market isn't heavily protected. You'll note that foreign carriers like Emirates can't fly domestic routes. If I fly Qantas to NYC, half the plane gets off in LA and nobody else can get on. Which is part of why "Qantas ticket" is the ancient Yolŋu word for "financial ruin".
So why can I choose to buy either an Apple laptop or an HP one in the US, but don't have the choice to fly on Emirates from Chicago to NYC? I think you missed my point entirely. There is a market of people willing to pay for superior quality airline service, there is just no supply for it, because of regulation.
They're agressively seeking to increase profit margins.
That meant that expensing has stripped away the ability to book business class tickets. (That is arguable if that's a good idea or not given the complexity of tickets)
The aggressiveness about seeking higher profit margins at all costs has also meant that the money that would be available for those things are considered to be "fat".
The closest that you have with the Singapore/Emirates setup is United Polaris and Global Services.
Please tell me you're joking.
Companies won't do that unless forced to by regulations. Also, your post that I replied to implied that it was all market forces.
Even if you were to take a cyncical view that companies don't care about people, they sure as heck would not want to lose a $300 million plane.
I'm not arguing against the utility of regulations. I'm saying don't overstate it.
To draw a point of comparison many companies know that their infrastructure is vulnerable to hacking or data leaks. The reason why they don't fix the problem in the first place is because they've ran the cost analysis and realized that the cost of securing their system is more than the potential ramifications of losing customer data.
If safety didn't matter, you might have $200 million planes with a 3% chance of crashing during their service life.
Nobody 'wants' to lose equipment, but optimizing for zero crashes ever is not done for cost reasons.
Also I am not sure how you quantify safety. Overall it may have increased, but nobody ever shot a buik missile against my car and got away with it.
1. Wow, WizzAir, and Norweigan air has created a lot of competition on the airline front and price wars. EDIT: Forgot to mention their point to point system has also benefited many towns that wouldn't dream of traveling to Europe.
I've flow with Norwegian Air and I actually liked them. They're like the Southwest of transatlantic flights. The legacy carrier's response has been "we'll just lower our prices" and decrease benefits on all sides. (I.e. basic econ)
2. The newer carriers have had the money to lease new airplanes that are much more fuel efficient. I think that's where the legacy carriers have done does bad planning for the last decade. (They're just not buying 787s and they're depending on ERJ/CRJs)
The frequent fliers are mostly immune to all this and the family visiting grandma is often going to pick the absolute cheapest flight.
Nope. For example the business sector market doesn't necessarily look for cheapest fares. For that market (which is quite big) there are other considerations, like minimizing layovers, in-flight comfort, lounge access, priority boarding, etc.
On the other hand, those business travelers mostly don't even care about early boarding or baggage fees anyway because they're either expensing them or get them for free because of status.
Economy class, of course.
I think that the industry has generally found that price-discrimination is a powerful tool, though. The business traveler flying Sydney<->SFO on the corporate dime will pay the extra several thousand for lie-flat seats; the upper-middle-class family with bored kids will pay for wifi and tablet holders; but keeping those (and baggage, prime seat selection, early check-in, etc.) optional keeps flying accessible to the working-class laborer who needs to fly home for a funeral.
Fees for everything for the price-sensitive masses.
And, for business travelers with status (who are at a minimum less price sensitive and typically don't pay most of the base level fees anyway), somewhat better seating as a perk, much better seating for upgrades/upsells, a premium class of airline clubs among the base level (e.g. United's Polaris Clubs), etc.
And, as you say, I don't really have a problem with all this because it makes flying much more affordable for those that find the most bargain economy ticket a big expense. While I might personally enjoy it more, you don't really want a world where lie-flat seats are required on all 5+ hour flights.
This fall I recently started flying again after having not flown since 1999, and I've been making it a point to only fly Southwest because they're the only airline that's even remotely consumer friendly.
I wish I could use them more.
E.g. Amazon is disrupting retail. But even before Amazon existed, retail was highly competitive, with market forces driving down prices. (Indeed, there is a good argument that Amazon is decreasing competition even as it disrupts the market.)
The market can only decide when consumers are fully informed of the charges before they purchase the ticket. If Expedia modifies their web site to ask if you have baggage and adds baggage fees to the displayed total then consumers are fully informed.
It's easy to see that airlines are being too greedy here and taking benefit of no option left for customer. It's not market price as most people just look for the cheapest ticket. After buying it, it's basically a monopoly.
Personally, I like when airlines charge a reasonable amount for seat selection. I get really claustrophobic being on the inside seat, so with airlines that charge for it, I always get an aisle seat which is worth more to me than the money. And then people who don't care at all get a slightly subsidized ticket and sit in the middle/window seat.
There were times when I sprung for priority boarding or emergency row seating, and times where I didn't - and in both cases, I appreciated the option. Let people decide if they care enough about extra leg room that they are willing to throw and that extra $30 for the better seat versus not (because if free, EVERYONE would want extra leg room).
Maybe legislation like this is passed and signed all the time, but it seems shocking to me because all of the articles I read are about laws bought and paid for by one lobbying group or another.
Yeah, that sounds like a classic case of "not my problem, therefore it shouldn't be regulated".
If some group of passagers have no choice but to fly and also have a hard minimum of baggage they need, there is no market force to keep baggage prices low. So a pure market solution would have them climb ever higher.
> It's an extra revenue stream for airlines
The original rationale for baggage fees is that added baggage makes plane operation more expensive. I guess, treating it as an "extra revenue stream" is at least honest, but is something that can be justified a lot less in regards if usefulness for society.
Given two flights A and B, it could be the case that A is cheaper for the person who doesn't want checked luggage, whereas B is cheaper for someone who wants to check in a suitcase.
>The story of this law has been dominated largely by what isn't in it: no restrictions on what airlines can charge for baggage or change fees.
I'm glad. I don't like paying baggage fees (in fact, I've started to travel much more with only a carry-on partly to avoid the fees) but this is one of those things that the market should decide. It's an extra revenue stream for airlines (or an extra perk when waived for those with status). In general gives airlines more options and more flexibility in adjusting ticket prices.