
Airline Baggage Fees Are a Good Deal for Travelers - negrit
https://www.flexport.com/blog/airline-baggage-fees-are-a-good-deal-for-travelers/
======
hapless
Air shippers offer a money-back guarantee on timely delivery of the baggage.
If an express cargo package is bumped from a plane, the _very next_ plane will
take it to its destination, because failure is expensive.

My checked baggage, on the other hand, is a strictly best-effort affair. If it
doesn't fit on my plane, it becomes a "gets there when it gets there" problem.
Once it's bumped once, the airline sees little reward in getting it to me
faster or slower. There's good odds I will never see it again.

Comparing a $25 checked bag fee to a contracted cargo shipment is quite
unfair.

\--

edit: Here's another fun item. Technically, the conditions of carriage on your
ticket don't require them to bump cargo for your baggage. And there's no
incentive for them to do so.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-07-09/a-lawsuit-
co...](http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-07-09/a-lawsuit-could-reveal-
if-passenger-bags-get-bumped-for-airline-cargo)

“It costs United nothing to remove checked baggage, rather than cargo, in
order to arrive at an acceptable aircraft weight because the checked baggage
fee is purportedly nonrefundable, and United can simply transport the checked
baggage on a later flight to the passenger’s destination.”

~~~
tgb
While I completely see your point, it sounds pessimistic to me. The last time
I had a bag end up on a wrong flight (which happened only because I got on an
earlier flight from standby), they delivered the bag to my doorstep several
hours later. I was impressed and had been ready to sit around the airport for
while waiting for it. Other than that, I have literally never had a bag on the
wrong flight, even when travelling cross country. Honestly, if they handled
passengers as well as they handled my bags, I'd be happy.

~~~
hapless
I actually looked this up. The mishandled baggage rate is now 7.3 bags per
thousand passengers. (It has fallen considerably in recent years, since
baggage fees reduce the amount of baggage carried per passenger)

I have had snafus often enough that I no longer check bags, in any capacity.
If I can't carry it myself, I mail it in advance.

~~~
newjersey
Funny enough, the postal service has managed to lose one of two parcels I had
sent to myself. The tracking number showed that it got to a halfway point and
that's it.

Getting someone on the phone was impossible. Going to the local post office
was not easy either (snow season) and when I finally did, it didn't seem like
the package ever made it there. Apparently, if the USPS manages to get a
package mishandled, they will send it all to a sorting facility near Atlanta,
Georgia. I'd have to fill a form to start an investigation. Of course, the
form is not available on the USPS website.

Thankfully, it wasn't something ridiculously valuable. However, if I ever have
something of value it will stay with me. No, I will not check that carry on
either.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I only know of one item that the post office lost for me, in 30 or so years.
Unfortunately, that one item was a mortgage payment on my house...

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dwg
The argument has some holes.

First, the conclusion that baggage fees are a good deal doesn't follow since
the baggage fee shortfall is accounted for in the price of the ticket. A more
valid conclusion is that travelers who don't check bags are subsidizing
travelers who do.

Second, opportunity cost is used to conclude that the fees are a good deal.
However, most travelers won't travel without baggage and since baggage fees
we're most likely just a way to raise prices without raising the ticket price
per se, it's a wash.

I suppose it would be different if the article made a case for cheaper, carry-
on only flights which sell the cargo space for shipping. Does something like
this exist? Seems to be a good business opportunity if not.

~~~
pedalpete
Agree, just because you are using an asset (the travelling space) and charging
two different prices for it, doesn't mean one is getting it cheap.

When bookstores started putting coffee shops in them, the coffee shop only
took a small portion of the bookstores footprint. Though the revenue per
square foot was larger for the coffee shop, they don't just say 'we should
charge more per book because of the revenue difference to the rev/sqft in the
coffee shop.

Seriously flawed logic.

~~~
danwyd
The point is that there's a serious opportunity cost. By prioritizing customer
service (to some degree), airlines can't charge sell space to businesses
moving cargo for a higher margin.

The coffee shop argument doesn't really work because you can't keep scaling
it. At a certain point people want space for books. But given that there's a
space shortage on international flights, there's probably room for airlines to
make more money by charging for freight instead of taking your luggage.

------
naspinski
Correct me if I am wrong, but when these fees showed up, my ticket price did
not drop by the same amount, correct? So adding a fee, no matter how much of a
"good deal" it is is still a addition to cost.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Yes and no. Airline prices have been dropping in real terms since the 1980s,
if not sooner. (Of course, the airline experience has been dropping also.) I
recall reading that since about 1960, net profit for the (US domestic) airline
industry has been $0. And the history of the airline industry has been
bankruptcy, reorganization, lockout, rinse and repeat.

So airline ticket prices have been dropping to the point that airlines don't
make money. So the baggage fees, yes, did not cut ticket prices, but ticket
prices were arguably too low to begin with.

It would have been better for airlines to honestly increase ticket prices, of
course...

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wflann
It seems this analysis is forgetting the revenue made by the airline by
selling tickets to passengers. If it's too expensive to check a bag, the
airline will have empty seats and a lot more empty space wasted.

------
devy
Author is a long time import/export supply chain business man. So his views
are naturally reflected his narrow domain.

I think we probably all agree that paying extra luggage fees that we don't
used to pay is NOT a good deal. We also know that airline industry are
struggling in the post-911 era. They have been trying to extract every
possible revenue streams they can possibly get: narrower but more seats on the
same plane, more granular levels of seat upgrades, non-free in flight meals,
change of milage programs and luggage fees. As some of the other commenters
pointed out, the author failed to recognize that airliners are making profit
not because of those extra fees but by carrying more passengers (and more
efficiently). And customer patronage and airfares have DIRECT impact on the
sales (e.g. post 911 airline industry slump). Author also failed to recognize
that each passenger carried with luggage, there are more ways for airlines to
sell added-value services (drinks, merchants, in-flight movies, seat upgrades
etc) to. So to say that carrying air freight is going to be more profitable
for airlines is absurd.

I almost wonder if the author was getting paid to write this article or
perhaps trying to stir up getting some PR exposure out of this absurd post.

------
martinald
Perhaps this is different on long haul widebody flights - but one of the
secrets of ryanair/easyjet's success is their ability to get so few checked in
bags onboard. I've sometimes seen as few as maybe 5-10 bags going in the hold.

Now that means there's a lot of space going free in the cargo hold, but it
means you can turn the flights round ridiculously quickly. Which means you can
do many more segments per day and you don't have the plane sitting their
deprecating.

edit: it's also great for a passenger as it can take up to an hour in big
airports to get the bags onto the belts. i hate checking in bags now and curse
myself every time I do.

~~~
slapshot
Southwest has the opposite thesis: it believes that baggage handlers are
faster at loading bags under the plane than passengers would be trying to
stuff those bags overhead.

At least in the US, Southwest is known (notorious) for the having the fastest
ground turns of 737s. They started at 10 minutes [1] and have moved to a
leisurely 25 minutes, against a US average of 90 minutes.

This seems to make a lot of sense to me -- baggage handlers are pretty fast
and can move bags much faster than passengers can board a plane. Moving
luggage handling below the plane allows two parallel tasks to execute: one
stream is focused on passengers finding seats and the other is focused on bags
being loaded. Otherwise you have serial execution of passengers trying to
upload bags to the bins before the next passenger can do anything.

[1] [http://www.cnbc.com/id/43768488](http://www.cnbc.com/id/43768488)

~~~
pavel_lishin
But don't most people bring a carry on on board anyway?

~~~
cozzyd
The issue is that on other airlines that charge baggage fees, everyone brings
a big roller bag on board. There isn't enough room for everyone's bag, so this
leads to a massive slowdown as people try to find a spot, flight attendant's
trying to convince people to put stuff that fits under seats under the seat,
etc.

------
PaulHoule
When I fly I send as much of my stuff checked as possible except for a
backpack I stuff under the seat in front of me.

I just don't want to be part of the crush of people wheeling wheels around the
airport, trying to pack as much as possible within the "free limit".

When I do a check a bag that I don't need to check, often the baggage handlers
will question why I am checking this bag, they'll tell me it is a waste of
money and I tell them I have the credit card so I get a free bag.

~~~
scurvy
Gotta wait for the bag to arrive at baggage claim though. At some airports,
this can just take a long time. In Denver, you might not ever see that bag
again.

It's also a slow proposition when flying late at night into smaller airports.
I frequently fly SFO-MSY that lands at midnight CT. I swear there's only a
single bag handler in all of MSY at that point. Not unheard of to wait an hour
for your bag.

I think most people prefer to carry on for these reasons, not just avoiding
the fee. International, I always check the bag. Global Entry makes up for any
lost time in waiting for a bag.

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pavel_lishin
> _Here’s the takeaway: when airlines check your suitcase for $25, they’re
> giving up space for which freight forwarders would pay $40 to $100 to
> transport air cargo._

Uh, but if they decide not to ship my bag^, they also decide not to ship _me_
, because I'm not planning on buying a whole new wardrobe at my destination.

Also, doesn't this imply that they should be paying _me_ not to check luggage?

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bickfordb
This reminds of one time when I was on an Alaska Airlines Anchorage flight and
the front half of the plane was sealed off for cargo.

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outside1234
Sounds like an opportunity for BagBNB to connect shippers with passengers
without hold baggage. :)

~~~
elbigbad
I know this is in jest, but I think one of the biggest problems with this
would be the security implications. I wouldn't put my name on a stranger's bag
if I didn't know them. Next thing you know, TSA finds illegal substances or
something and you're in a lot of trouble because, after all, your name was on
the bag!

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Justin_K
Except the standard was to include these costs in the ticket. So add the cost
of your ticket and it's not such a good deal.

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supercoder
I always just FedEx my luggage anyway to save time at the airport.

