Delta and Continental up baggage fees, will anyone notice?
Delta Airlines chose to announce they are increasing their checked baggage fees. If you pay online, your fee goes from $15 for the first bag to $23 for the first bag. The second bag checked rises from $25 to $32 (paid online). Continental matched those fees almost immediately. While it seems exorbitant to me, I wonder if anyone will really notice right now.
I suspect Delta did this simply because they have pricing power at most of their hubs (ATL, MSP, DTW, SLC, CVG, MEM) and because they don’t think it is going to affect the consumer’s decision about which airline to fly in most cases. Delta doesn’t get a lot of LCC competition at its hubs except for ATL and there seems to be a unspoken agreement with Airtran not to get too ugly there. Besides, Airtran has checked baggage fees too.
The thing is, most online sites that offer booking for airlines in the US do not mention baggage fees when displaying prices for routes. Delta will continue to appear to be very competitive on routes while likely adding additional incremental revenue through the “gotcha” approach. Quite honestly, I suspect they’ll get away with it. At least until there is a healthy recovery in the airline industry and that is likely 18 to 24 months away still. Maybe more.
Will others match it? I suspect that American Airlines might. There is no precise harmony among airlines on these fees, not yet anyway. Continental already had pretty high fees at $18 and $27 for online checked fees (with a $2 and $3 surcharge at the airport). AA is at $20 and $30 respectively whether you check online or at the airport. US Airways is at $20 / $30 for online (with a $5 surcharge for checking at the airport.) United is $15 and $25 for online checking.
By contrast, Southwest Airlines has no fees up to the 3rd bag, jetBlue offers the first bag free and $30 fee for the second while Airtran charges $15 for the first and $25 for the second. In other words, these fees are all over the place. The truth is, as competitive as airfares are on many routes, these fees can change the equation pretty dramatically in some cases since those fees are for each way on a round trip flight.
These fees have added dramatic amounts of revenue to airlines’ bottom line and I don’t see them going away at all. I don’t think the fees among legacy airlines will harmonize much at all until and if online travel sites begin showing an “all in” pricing when comparing fares. Even with such comparisons, I don’t think the fees go away so much as they just begin to merge together among the airlines.
Will anyone else raise their fees? Well, maybe. I’m sure it will be tempting to do so among all the legacy airlines. One or two may even try to raise the ante some. I kind of think both United and American Airlines will try some kind of new mix in the future. I don’t see the LCC carriers playing around with their fees much if at all. They have the revenue and now this may be their chance to follow Southwest’s strategy in a modified form by advertising lower checked baggage fees.
I don’t think Southwest will change its attitude on these fees based on this new development. Their strategy appears to be working for them and they don’t have a history of following the pack when something works. That said, I’m sure it is something they’ll re-examine from time to time and it doesn’t mean they won’t add fees at some point in the future. Right now, they appear to be capturing customers with their ‘no fees” approach and their aggressive advertising seems to have caught some attention.
As much as I hate these fees for the 1st bag checked, I hate that airlines and travel websites have done really little to truly show the “all in” price for these trips. It makes things just that much more murky for the consumer and that is a bad thing. However, the best thing you can do is learn the fees for the airlines you may be shopping for a trip and do the math yourself. You’ll be frustrated by it and no doubt resent it but there isn’t a ready made solution at this time.
Frankly, these developments are just one more reason why I wonder about Southwest re-joining the travel agency world. The world has changed since they left it and, quite honestly, I think they could re-structure their IT infrastructure and re-join those agencies with little incremental costs involved. At that point, they become the no brainer for many consumers from my view. Even as aware as I am of airline options and even being located in the DFW area, even I tend to forget about Southwest as an option sometimes.
One strategy for learning these fees is to visit LuggageLimits.Com (also linked in my sidebar).
I just think the checked bag fees are exactly the wrong way to raise revenue, because it encourages further limit-pushing and abuse of carry-ons, which slows the airline’s ability to turn the planes around, slows down the TSA lines, and leads to more conflict between passengers and crew as too much carry-on luggage fights for too little space. The airlines don’t need to give passengers still more reasons not to check their bags.
The airlines don’t need to give passengers still more reasons not to check their bags.
Amen.
-R
(who is beginning to get royally sick of the way airlines are milking us business travelers these days, and is liable to punch an airline gate agent in the face, one fine morning…)