Sent this comment/question in before but can’t find it here or any response. However, do see others are begining to ask similar questions.

If luggage was covered with a ticket price in the past and the airline, therefore, was able to set its own limits on liabiity for lost luggage or damaged luggage, does it follow that a separate charge for each piece of luggage changes the contract? Now that an airline is charging me a fee to take my bag, they are entering into a contract with me to carry and deliver my bag safely (since after accepting the bag, they have control of it and I do not) in return for which I must pay them a fee they set to cover the cost of carrying out their end of the deal.
If they then lose the luggage, fail to transport it in a safe and timely manner when they make changes in routing or if the luggage becomes damaged or is taken by a thief, do I as a party to the contract have different rights for compensation? Can I then claim the actual cost of my loss in full because the airline failed to complete its contract with me?

Also, there is really poor security for baggage at carousels. Anybody can pick up my bag and walk away with it. Luggage not immediately claimed is often piled up in an airport area where, again, anybody can walk up and take whatever they like.

If I am paying a specific fee to the airline to transport my luggage (as one person says, as freight), isn’t the airline then obliged to insure that nobody other than me or my designated agent can claim the baggage? Won’t they have to set up a “manned” office where people present a bagge claim to a “live person” who then ensures that the right bag goes to the right person. Is failure to do this a breach of contract on the part of the airline now that they have established a “separate” fee and therefore a “separate contract” with passengers for the transport of luggage?

Kathleen Eaton

It is not. Passengers want to be transported, including their luggage, from A to B. They want to pay one simply price. Not a incomprehensible addition of fees and charges.

On another note, I booked some hotels in France last week. What a relief. Pricing still happens for a large part according to season (high and low), and not according to ridiculous constantly changing pricing schemes. It was lovely, to just find the same prices everywhere, and not having to worry about fees and surcharges (ok, except the €0.60/day-visitor tourist tax, I paid one day). Quelle simplicite!

This is why I like United. At least their personnel knows they work in an insane business.

Isn’t it a $15.00 fee EACH WAY and so therefore a $30 fee, since 99.9% of us fly Round Trip.???

shame that even when you pay for the service, they can’t get that done for you !!!!!

Now that we have to pay seperatly for baggage, it should now be considered a package and should be governed by a completly seperate level of compensation. All shipping companies allow a declared value replacement for lost packages. An example is FedEx:
http://www.fedex.com/us/services/terms/groundtariff.html#filing
Scroll down to “Declared Value and Limits of Liability (Not Insurance Coverage)” section 3, it allows up to $50,000 declared value with less restrictions on what is covered than the airline offers for baggage coverage.
If airlines will offer the same amount of coverage, then sure, I don’t mind paying $15…So yeah, if the airlines are going to treat our baggage as freight, then we should get the same benefits as freight receives!
Ed
web/gadget guru

I also asked an AA counter clerk if AA really planned to try to collect the new $ 15 fee only at the airport. He said absolutely so — at the counter or kiosks or via sky caps. I cannot imagine. At least some of the small European airlines that charge a luggage fee let you pay it when you buy the ticket, so no cash or credit card transaction has to take place at the airport. That makes much more sense to me if these luggage fees stick…as I think they will.

We in the industry used to laugh about “Next the airlines will charge to use the restroom!” Well, I may live to see the day.

1. It can be taken as a given that far more people will choose to carry their stuff on the plane, rather than pay the fee. This will, at least initially, cause utter havoc at the TSA security checkpoints as people try to carry on everything they would have normally put in their checked luggage. Can you imagine being stuck behind hordes of people trying to bring aboard full-size bottles of shampoo, giant tubes of toothpaste, various tools and implements, etc. Now multiply that by several million. :-(

2. Boarding will be interesting, especially given that overhead space is already tight. It actually might not matter much on American Eagle’s RJ’s, since a checked bag and a gate checked carryon still go in the same cargo compartment. Though it DOES mean that boarding and deplaning will be considerably slower, with far more gate-checked bags to handle. On mainline jets, where overhead space is already tight, it’s liable to be an absolute disaster, since far more bags will need to be checked planeside.

3. Here’s where it gets interesting… If they try to collect the $15 fee after the passenger has already boarded the plane, what will they do if the passenger doesn’t have the $15 in cash? Will they take credit cards? How? Will they call security to drag off the passenger with the rollaboard that won’t fit on the plane (and how long would that delay boarding)? Even if everyone has the cash handy, how long will it delay getting off the gate to collect all of those fees?

4. What if they DON’T collect the $15 fee, however (or waive it if there is a “problem”)? Then there is an easy way to get around the hateful fee, and EVERYBODY will carryon and hope to have no overhead space (getting their bag checked, and neatly avoiding the $15).

Any way you slice it, this looks to be a major disaster for AA.

In a rational world, the solution would be to have fares rise to cover costs. But, of course, the airline business as practiced since deregulation is anything but rational.

I actually really miss the CAB.

Sigh…