Question
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Objections to Checked Baggage Fees

Answer
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Thank you for your recent message concerning fees for checked baggage. We can appreciate your interest in this issue.

Congress deregulated air fares a number of years ago. The Department of Transportation has no authority to regulate the prices that airlines charge for air transportation services, including fees for checked bags. Transporting a checked bag costs an airline more than transporting a carry-on bag, and some airlines and individuals feel that passengers who do not check a bag should not be required to share the cost of checked baggage. A similar ‘unbundling” concept for services and prices has appeared for in-flight meals and beverages, and for purchasing a ticket from a reservations agent (as opposed to online).

As indicated above, DOT cannot regulate the amount an airline charges for checked baggage, whether or not those charges are included in the advertised fare, and currently there are no regulations that prohibit airlines from charging separately for checked baggage. However, DOT has taken steps to ensure that consumers are not misled by airlines in the charges they assess for baggage. In this regard, on May 13, 2008, DOT’s Aviation Enforcement Office issued detailed guidance to the airline industry designed to ensure that prospective air travelers receive timely and effective notice about charges for checked bags. See http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/rules/guidance.htm. We also have a rule that prohibits airlines from charging for assistive devices tendered as checked baggage by passengers with disabilities (e.g., a wheelchair or walker).

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts.

Lihue is on the island of Kauai, not Oahu. This info is good to know, however, since I will be traveling LIH-HNL-DEN in September on Hawaiian and United and plan to check my bags all the way through.

http://www.bts.gov/programs/economics_and_finance/air_travel_price_index/html/table_13.html

At the risk of possibly going off-topic, aren’t there sites (Yapta, I think) that historically tracks airfare changes over a period of time? Would be interesting to see how much airfare has changed prior, during, and after baggage fees were added.

That comment made no sense. Consider. Most of the goods and services that you purchase use relatively static pricing. Prices generally don’t change quickly, often, or by much. Airline tickets use a dynamic model. So you simply cannot pick a point in time and say, well the ticket prices have or haven’t dropped. You have to average it. In my case, ticket prices have plummetted. I used to pay between $200-300 to fly with one day notice from the Bay area to LA on American Airlines. Now I pay between $58 and $158 on average.

The point being is that there were two options. Either raise ticket prices on everyone, thus making the fee unavoidable, or raise it on those folks whose behavior warrants the fee.

@Carrie

How does that solve the problem? Your solution is to increase my ticket prices by $15 per ticket regardless of whether I have a bag or not, whether I have status or not, whether I have their credit card or not. No thanks.

I apologize in advance for taking so long to board the plane. Don’t blame me, blame the airlines.

Our last trip (to Cozumel) was a packing adventure – he was diving and I wasn’t, so we had to get all of our clothes and extras into one bag so that his dive bag had nothing but dive gear in it…The nice thing about Continental is that, if the bag is dive gear ONLY, you get a 70 lb weight allowance on the bag – which is VERY handy for divers…

Reason 1: It would cause an increase in fares as the airlines work feverishly to find a way to replace this lost revenue. Does anyone really believe that the airlines are just going to walk away from this revenue. Of course not. The end result would merely be a revenue shifting result. Instead of one group (infrequent fliers) paying this charge, it would be spread amongst everyone, aka redistribution of wealth.

The beauty of the checked bag fee is that the person who is paying for it is likely to be an infrequent flyer, who generally costs the airline more money due to his or her lack of flying experience.

Reason 2: Government intervention stiffles innovation and creatively. To avoid checked baggage fees, flyers will 1)pack lightly, 2)join the loyalty program, 3)fly a discount airline, etc. The power is in the passenger to decide what works best for him or her. That government intervention accomplishes is a one size fits all solution. Don’t believe me? Been to any government offices lately, say, the DMV?

I definitely take such fees into account when buying a ticket, comparing the bottom line, and I’d strongly encourage search engines such as Kayak to take them into account as well. It shouldn’t be hard to fill in “number of bags checked” when obtaining prices. (I also wish Kayak were able to list Southwest flights.)

Unless there is government action, the only way this thing will end is if the airlines find the market dictating that it end. Neither looks very likely at this point, but we can keep trying.