@kepler11: I do the only thing I can do -- vote with my $/£. For now that means avoiding Delta, which is easily done since B6 is doing it right for now. Go back through the Consumerist archives and you'll see me BEGGING the airlines to bring back good customer service and just raise their damn prices and stop this hogwash. Deliver what you promise/advertise and the price you advertise. Is that too much to ask?

And no, I wasn't one of the people protesting gas prices. Demand's up and speculation on the commodities markets is driving the price to insane levels. It's not the local stations who are profiting off the increases. I just did all that I could -- I cut back my consumption.

@BMRFILE: No matter how I try to get around it, I'm stuck with at least my suitcase and a Pelican case. I could (and have) FedEx'd the Pelican case to hotels and home, but I certainly prefer to have it with me when possible. For shorter trips I usually just pack a carryon and carry as little gear with me as possible.

The sad cumulative effect of all these extra fees and surcharges lately is that most people (at my income level, anyway) are just not going to travel. We'll stay home and think about what we're missing out on and be jealous of the people that can afford it (maybe that's just me). As mentioned by JN2 above, I think they're just shooting themselves in the foot with things like this. It seems to me that more profits would come from making flying more attractive and accessible to more people, but maybe they're trying to weed out the "riff-raff."

@festivus802:

From the NYT article --

"The increased second-bag fee, and the other fees, will apply to passengers who book tickets on or after Thursday for travel after Tuesday."

So you are good.

Still trying to see if I can get Airtran to not charge me the second bag fee for my Labor Day trip though -- I booked my ticket before the fees were announced, and according to an article here, the Transportation Sec'y said they can't impose those retroactively. They're trying though, and I can't see who if anyone is actually enforcing that.

@FLConsumer: I travel primarily for my job, and I travel very often. There's a way to not kill yourself by lugging around all that stuff. Take the time and take a tally of all the stuff you NEED. I just got done with a two month stint away from home and all I needed was a medium sized suitcase, a backpack, and my laptop bag. No one cares if you don't have a different shirt each day.

@Jubilance22: Thanks for the tip, I'll look into it

thanks for bringing real information into the topic. Seems like most of the time, people here just like to guess about everything they have no experience with, and then pass blame/bitterness around without a shred of knowledge.

@SMSDHubbard: @kepler11: And once again you're on the boards defending every policy by the airlines. It's enough to make one think that you have an interest in them!

I really don't care who you think I am. I don't particularly defend the airlines -- I just state facts and why things are the way they are, and you take them to be anti-consumer. I'm the one actually adding useful information for people to use and read, both from passenger and airline perspectives, in my posts, while you do nothing. Who's worse?

@FLConsumer: Delta: Congrats, you're officially off my company's travel list. Permanently. I could care less if you come up with $30 fares w/no surcharges in the future. If you've forgotten that your passengers are your customers, you've lost this customer for life.

oh please, do we have to have this melodramatic kind of tantrum? What are you going to do when other airlines match? Not travel anywhere? Eat your words? How many times have others had to back down from similar statements? Do you not buy gasoline now because you swore not to pay more than $2 per gallon and boycotted any station that would charge that much? Learn not to overreact like this.

The point I wish people would get, is that you can have two approaches to life. You can 1) sit around angry at fees, surcharges, and things that used to be free but are no longer, or you can 2) understand the reasons/mechanisms for why these fees can be/need to be charged now, and succeed within the system while others stand still. I post the stuff I do because I hope more people can learn why things happen, and use it to their advantage. Sometimes the mouth-breathers here make me not even want to bother.

As for the ATC issues, we all know what's been going on, but if the airlines don't schedule 5 flights to take-off at the SAME TIME we'd be in a much better situation without any infrastructure improvements. And remember, B6 is JFK's worst offender in this respect (they have the most daily movements). B6 is still the best (with DL my only choice here in PHL; screw US they can go into Ch 7 right now for all I care).

As an aside, I got to see the interior of the new T5 @ JFK last week, looks like it'll be on-time for their September opening. Hell, with the exception of the shops & restaurants it looked like you could almost open it now. The new T5 is nothing compared to the SE Asia airports, but still a huge improvement for JFK. Now if we could just get the ATC out of the 1950's (read: fix the eternal delays) at JFK, we'd have something. With T6 closing, I believe that leaves Delta with the oldest, rattiest terminal still going at JFK.

So, is there now some kind of luggage-delivery guarantee? For these prices, I'd expect my luggage to show up and ON TIME.

The question is: when gas goes back down to $2.50/gallon or lower (for us, and a similar amount for jet fuel), will they continue with these customer-raping practices? My guess is yes.

Delta: Congrats, you're officially off my company's travel list. Permanently. I could care less if you come up with $30 fares w/no surcharges in the future. If you've forgotten that your passengers are your customers, you've lost this customer for life.

If don't have any carry-ons for a flight, can I get a credit for the unused carry-on on the next flight, so that I could take 2 for free?

@RabbitDinner: Check on sending your things to school using Greyhound. I did this and it was cheaper than any othe option, my stuff made it there ontime and in perfect condition.

$125 Each? Might as well use UPS.. at least they lose less luggage.

Wasn't there an artical about how shipping your luggage to your destination is cheaper than checking it in the plane?

$3.69 some places in Maine!

Best of all, refusing to refund the baggage fee as well. Wow. So he basically paid them extra money for the pleasure of buying new clothing.

Delta, We Love To Screw You... And It Shows!

Why not charge the fat beast sitting next to me an extra $50.

@BMRFILE:

You must have met my sister.

@numberoneasa: nice to know that there's a logical traveler out there.

they're raising the fees on checked bags, good! Maybe the twits I see that travel with their entire living room sets will think twice about what they pack. The whole purpose of a vacation is to get away from all the crap you deal with daily, this includes excess crap you own. Travel light. You'll be happier.

You know how you can spot a Japanese tourist by seeing hinm snapping pictures away, even at the baggage claim? Well, you can spot an American traveler by the baby grand piano and the China hutch that she's lugging around, totally clueless about where to find the right terminal.

@thewriteguy:

They would actually like to do so.

But with all the tickets bought online and via telephone, there is no easy way to classify customers prior to ticket sales and I would lie and say I weighed 125 lbs if I got a cheaper ticket.

@thewriteguy:

Please NO. I weigh more than you.

@sean98125:

Actually not a bad idea.

BUT in reality the airlines are trying to cut down on ALL luggage. { Quicker loading and offloadings, less baggage handlers needed, less fuel needed, or they can haul more packages for air freight companies. ) And charging by weight just encourages some bags to still enter the system.

Then I'm gonna hand the gravel to the next guy and say "hi, here's some gravel."

(Well, no I'm not really going to do any of that, but it makes me feel better to think about it.)

Ech.. Thank God I don't/won't fly anywhere. My last big trip was NYC to Chicago for work. Amtrak baby! My own sleeper, my own toilet. Dinner. Newspaper under my door when I woke up, coffee in the car, then off to breakfast. Arrived in Chicago and walked to my hotel. No BS! Ready to go when I got there. I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

@yasth:

Shipping Rates for 2000 lbs (1 ton), NMFC Class 92.5, commercial dock to commercial dock with no accessorials services required, high volume shipper's tarriff, from Dallas to Chicago: $525.

Just thought you might want to have some real numbers.

I don't mind a baggage fee if I can be assured that my bags will actually get there!
Seriously, these carry-on regulations are ridiculus and I refuse to pay for a checked bag:
1) Cologne is forbidden
2) Razors are forbidden
3) I can't wear a belt or shoes, so I must use rope and birkenstocks.

The government is turning me into a dirty hippy.

Working in a hotel I see lost luggage EVERY day. I do not trust the airlines to deliver my luggage. Now with a $50 fee, there is NO reason to check a second bag.

Now, the problem is that Delta forgets about the people that leave there thinking "I'll never fly this ******* airline again". Once enough of them swear off Delta, they'll be worse off (but then again, companies don't seem to care if you swear them off forever).

I am fairly certain you could ship a 1 ton pallet depot to depot for what Delta wants to charge for two extra > 50 pound bags.

Here's the problem I have: by charging for checked baggage, you're encouraging customers to stuff everything they have in an inevitably oversized carry-on. This causes the security lines to be longer (since many are inexperienced and don't know how to pack the things they need to pull out) and causes boarding delays while they fight with their bag for 5 minutes.

It's gotten so expensive to ship surfing equiptment that I just started buying new boards when I travel. Sucks when you are traveling somewhere that doesn't have a lot of surf shops though (i.e. Nicaragua) - earlier this year I paid 150$ to fly a throwaway board I paid 100$ for.

But who the hell uses surfboards that weigh over 70 pounds, Godzilla?

But also, you have to see that they are delivering a very different kind of cargo compared to UPS/Fedex -- suitcases packed all different nonstandard sorts of ways, bulky, non-palletizable non-rectangular stuff, that is expected to be at the destination within 15 minutes of landing. This makes it more difficult to optimize the process.

We're losing money! What should we do?
~ Lower prices? Attract new customers?
Ha ha ha ! Seriously, we pay you guys a lot of money, what you got for us?
I want ideas like, Raise fares! Charge for baggage!
~ Isn't that just shooting ourselves in the foot?

We have more than one foot and bullets are cheap.

I predict:

1) Airlines will soon start charging for all checked baggage, including the first one.

1) Airlines will soon start charging for all checked baggage, including the first one.

2) Flying without checked baggage will still be considered a red flag on your Terrorist Likelihood Profile (TM).

3) Profit!!!

For a service that gets you up to 50 pounds of baggage at the speed of your flight, at the destination the same time you are, checking a bag is still the cheapest compared to all your other options.

They're going to have to get better at keeping that promise, if that's the argument they (airlines) are going to make.

For a service that gets you up to 50 pounds of baggage at the speed of your flight, at the destination the same time you are, checking a bag is still the cheapest compared to all your other options.

i.e., if you need something to travel to your destination with you on the flight, you will not find a cheaper way to send it. Compare the price of Fedex/UPS, can they will charge you way more than that.

Now, for bags/stuff that you can do without for a few days, and you don't need specifically to bring with you, you may be better off sending it ahead with ground service or your choice of package delivery. Airlines provide fast service, and if your needs are not that critical, then they want you to choose to check less, or find alternative, more appropriate (cheaper) means of doing it.

That is what the airlines are trying to get people to understand and pay for -- services that they don't take for granted and will actually pay the real value for.

I don't think skis are charged extra. The PDF still says:

"Items of skiing/snowboard equipment may be accepted as checked baggage and one such item maybe included within the free baggage allowance. One item of skiing equipment is defined as one pair of skis/ski poles or one snowboard, and one boot bag. The combined weight of the ski/snowboard bag and the boot bag may not exceed 50lb or excess weight charges will apply. The maximum outside linear dimensions
may exceed 80 inches, and no excess size charges apply."

Whereas for SURFBOARDS:

"Surfboards will not be accepted as part of passenger's free allowance. All surfing equipment will be charged a rate of one excess bag charge of USD175* each way up to 70lbs. Surfboards are one board per bag, additional boards in a bag will be charged, per board, the excess bag rate. Surfboards over 70lbs will be charged the excess weight charge of USD175 in addition to the flat rate fee. The maximum outside linear dimensions may not exceed 109 inches."

This sucks a lot since I'll be flying on August 7th with a family of 6! Common Delta! Give me a break.

@Lin-Z: I don't know, the bag fees actually force me to think before I pack. I'd rather go a little lighter than pay more

Although I have a feeling my dorm room may be uncharacteristically empty this fall due to my knocking things down to one back. Worth the cost for the second bag? Meh, if I really want it, shipping it up will be around the same cost and save me the hassle of dragging it to the airport.

If you're checking two bags for a domestic flight, you have more problems than worrying about a fee. I'm guilty of this when I travel to school each fall. Thankfully I have a ton of crap in storage.