
A Staggering Look at Baggage Fees - mgrouchy
http://blog.hipmunk.com/a-staggering-look-at-baggage-fees-infographic
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tptacek
Does anyone here really think that in the absence of baggage fees, ticket
prices wouldn't simply rise to compensate? Taking advantage of customer price
sensitivity is pretty much the entire ballgame for airfares.

~~~
thecoffman
I think Southwest has proven this not to be the case. Their fares are
consistently lower than the majors in spite of having no bag fees and their
bottom line sure doesn't seem to be hurting any.

You could argue that the level of service isn't commensurate with what you'd
get on a Delta or AA so its not the same product - but I'd say personally that
my experiences with Southwest are far more pleasant than my dealings with any
of the others.

edit: s/fare/far (pun notwithstanding)

~~~
ben1040
_You could argue that the level of service isn't commensurate with what you'd
get on a Delta or AA so its not the same product_

The people who would argue this are probably the ones who also earned status
on a legacy carrier before they started really turning the screws on people in
2008, and thus have been immune to all the bag charges and seat fees all
along.

But, if you have no status on AA/Delta/United, you'll probably find you'd get
a better level of service on Southwest, at least based on my experiences from
having flown them recently.

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Bud
Hidden in the graphic and thus far unmentioned in the comment thread is the
staggeringly stupid fact that IRS made revenue from baggage fees tax-free in
January 2010.

This has to rank as the stupidest IRS decision of all time.

~~~
ry0ohki
Time to create a startup that does nothing but charge baggage fees!

~~~
Mankhool
How about a startup service that only moves baggage?

~~~
joezydeco
You mean like this?

[http://www.theupsstore.com/products/Documents/LuggageBoxInfo...](http://www.theupsstore.com/products/Documents/LuggageBoxInfo.pdf)

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Umalu
The rise of baggage fees incentivizes passengers to carry on as much luggage
as possible. It seems that the fight for overhead bin space is getting more
intense, and it is taking longer to complete the boarding process. I would
have thought the airlines would have wanted to incentivize passengers to check
bags, as that makes the whole process more efficient, so I would have expected
them to assess fees on carry on bags.

~~~
noodle
iirc, we had a discussion here about this here some time in the past.

jetblue and southwest don't charge for the first bag specifically because of
this. their processes are optimized on the assumption that you're going to
check one bag. it helps them to get more flights in per day, when people can
get to their seats and they can get the plane in the air faster.

it might actually do well to provide a ticket discount if you check a bag, in
order to ensure that there are limited delays. but that would require an
airline to care, and most don't seem to.

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klochner
It's not quite as shocking when you compare with overall revenues.

For example, Delta had $28B in 2009 revenues compared with $482M in baggage
fees, for just under 2% of total revenues.

As a side note, as long as you can get your bag through the xray scanner you
should just bring it to the gate. They may not let you carry it on, but
there's no fee for gate-checked bags.

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plusbryan
Airline baggage fees are good for you! Here's why: They are the a la carte
portion of your ticket.

If consumer groups succeed in limiting airlines' ability to charge such fees,
airlines will need to figure out other ways to monetize your travel, some that
may be more difficult avoid.

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drinian
Is this where I complain that my Strida folding bicycle costs $200 to check,
but a golf bag of the same size (and twice the weight) flies free?

It seems like a textbook example of executives, more inclined to travel with
golf bags, exempting themselves from the rules.

~~~
moeffju
Have you tried folding your bike up, then putting it inside a golf bag?

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cosgroveb
Yet another reason to fly Southwest whenever you can.

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stevelosh
Am I completely blind, or is there no way to enlarge the image to make it
readable?

~~~
jameskilton
It takes three clicks to do so. Image, then image again, then browser-show-
full-image.

~~~
stevelosh
Ah, looks like they just added an Imgur link above the image.

~~~
kn0thing
Sorry about that. IMGUR saves the day. <http://imgur.com/pCF1l?full>

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neutronicus
I have a friend who's obsessed with all things airlines, and he insists that
airlines were losing money on ticket sales all through the'90s and '00s, and
that all their profits came from selling frequent flyer miles to credit card
companies, who could use them as incentive to spend money.

Given the financial collapse, I wouldn't be surprised if the airlines are
hurting and need to pull money from somewhere.

~~~
snsr
Airline profits for 2010 were $2.5b in the black.

[http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2010/06/airline_prof...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2010/06/airline_profits)

~~~
ojbyrne
Which was probably all due to baggage fees. In fact that graph shows $2.5
billion in baggage fees charged in the US alone (your articles shows $2.5
billion worldwide, and I bet most of it is in the Asia-Pacific region).

Airlines had been steadily losing money from 9/11 up to 2009, except for a few
low-cost carriers.

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sledmonkey
What was the reason for the large jump from 2008 to 2009?

~~~
muzz
AFAIK, more airlines charging baggage fees, and more charging for the 1st bag

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edw519
_We're hoping for this to be the first of many hipmunk infographics..._

You're obviously doing great work with your graphics, but you still have work
to do...

On the main page, the letters and numbers are impossibly small to read.

On the "high-rez goodness", too much horizontal and vertical scrolling are
needed.

The "SUPER high-rez version" is the worst of both worlds, too small to read
when within a single window and to much to scroll when magnified.

Here's my challenge to your own resident Chief Scientist:

Give me the same easily discernible information that uses my screen, my whole
screen, and nothing but my screen, so help me Tufte.

~~~
kn0thing
Take a gander at the new IMGUR-powered links, I think the new one should do
the trick for just about any monitor size. What do you think?
<http://imgur.com/pCF1l?full>

Thanks for the feedback! We're still not at Good/Mint-caliber infographics,
but we hope to get there: <http://www.good.is/infographics>

~~~
edw519
Much better! If your customer service is as responsive as your hn presence,
nothing can stop you.

[The almost NSFW ads at the bottom of the page were a nice little perk for a
drudge-work Tuesday, too.]

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bcl
His numbers aren't right. I flew United (US Airways) last week and 1 checked
bag was $23 not $50.

~~~
muzz
The tiny blue print says "Prices listed are based on round-trip..."

The $23 instead of $25 each way must be the online discount

