NOT THE SHARPEST KNIVES IN THE DRAWER: Airline Fees Carry Unwanted Baggage
Airlines are raking in a fortune on a la carte fees imposed for a variety of once-standard services, such as checking in luggage, providing pillows and blankets and feeding you during the flight. At $15 to $40 a bag, luggage fees have generated more than $6 billion in revenue for U.S. airlines in the last four years. But with more travelers carrying their bags onto planes to avoid the fees, the law of unintended consequences has inevitably kicked in. The New York Times reports:
[T]he rising number of carry-on bags - the Transportation Security Administration estimated that there were 59 million more carry-ons in 2010 than the year before - has touched off a debate about just how much it costs to screen all the added bags, who should pick up the tab and whether airport security is being stretched too thin.
A report by the U.S. Travel Association, a travel industry trade group, concludes that the security screeners cannot keep up with the deluge and contends that the repercussions range from the serious - diminished security - to the unpleasant - longer lines at the checkpoint. …
A spokesman for the T.S.A., Greg Soule, acknowledged that the huge increase in the number of bags that needed to be screened had not been matched with more agents or X-ray machines, but added that the quality of inspections had not suffered.
“The number of bags brought to the checkpoint may affect passenger wait times,” he said, “but not the level of security that we provide, which is our priority.”
The Obama administration is loathe to ask the airlines to help defray the costs of the problem they created so guess who will get stuck with the tab? Yup, the passengers:
The Department of Homeland Security has proposed an increase to $4 from $2.50 in the passenger security fee, beginning in 2012. An increase in the fee, which passengers pay each time they board an airplane, would raise $600 million a year, the department estimated.
With passengers paying more for “extra perks” that were once part of the basic service package and the service they are getting steadily declining, more of them will decide that flying is too expensive or too much of a hassle and will choose to Webcast business meetings or take vacations closer to home. To make up for the lost fares, airlines will jack up their a la carte fees. Then more travelers will be unable to afford to fly and the airlines will have to raise their fees again. And so on, and so on and so on. This is a zero sum game.
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