On nickel-and-diming customers

You asked "why not raise the ticket price." Answer: then the light travelers are subsidizing people who take their whole wardrobes. It costs money to ship extra bags, and people who need that service probably ought to pay. I agree with you that it irritates customers who are used to getting some shipping for free, but this way I can place my value on packing light or paying for extra, rather than just getting a higher ticket price, so it actually does let me put my money on my values. (BTW, intercontinental flights charge by the pound over some limit, which also makes sense.)

Amen! Another great example is the banking industry. NC based First Union National Bank, one of the nation's largest (aka Fee Union) added so many fees they totally killed their brand. They had to buy Wachovia and take their name to recover from their major blunders.

I usually agree with you, but I'm not so sure you're right here. I don't think the COO presented this very well (they should have announced a $15 discount for fliers who don't check a bag and then quietly raised ticket prices by $15), but why should a flier checking a bag pay the same price as a flier without a checked bag? Of course, airline pricing is pretty messed up in general.

I'd pay $25 see each planes latest safety inspection.

bonnie

And they can't just charge more for the ticket because that's an up-front cost that the customers see immediately. We've seen many cases in the past few years where an airline raises fares $5 or $10, then retracts them a few days later. Why? Because all the competitors didn't follow suit, so suddenly Airline X is seen as more expensive and loses purchases to the others. Add-on prices are much more able to be hidden and sprung at the last minute, when the airline already has your $400 and you have no choice but to pony up the rest to take your trip.

Those last-minute fees are exactly the sort of thing that can reflect poorly on a brand. It certainly doesn't look good when someone has already paid a lot of money for something and is then asked to pony up more and now has no choice. Personally, I will be avoiding carriers that charge for the first bag.

I read that each 25lbs save 440K per year in fuel costs. In Europe a lot of the discount airlines charge that premium. To stay competitive, the fees need to be "hidden" (which they're not, since its clearly stated in the fine print). Its similar to all the surcharges etc. Now, if the baggage is lost or delayed, a refund should be in order.

Flying is now a commodity akin to taking the bus. We need to deal with it. We can't expect grand-old airline service with Southwest pricing.

And there are other repercussions...

How much longer will check-in take now that the agent must handle payments from passengers at the check-in counter?

I normally don't check a bag if I can get away with it (takes too long to show up on the carousel on arrival, and 10% of the time it doesn't show up at all!) so presumably even more people are going to try to avoid checking a bag in the future. But often there's not enough room in the overhead bins. If I'm forced to check a bag for which there is no room, will I still have to pay?

Buy adding on these fees it's does a couple of things.
1. There is an implied temporary nature to the fee in their customers head. However we all know that temporary fees rarely are just that. Who really thinks that gas prices will go down?
2. People complain about checked bags. I check a bag just so I don't have to deal with all of the people trying to cram all of their luggage overhead. You should get one bag checked for the price of your ticket. And doesn't the airline use that empty space for courier service?

I predict this charge being thrown out quickly, due to departure delays and customer disgust it causes. Why? People will now try to carry on more to save these fees. Anyone who travels somewhat frequently knows what a disaster this will be. Bins will fill up, people will get angry, flight attendants will force gate checks (and how will they charge for those?), and planes will be late(r). A few weeks (possibly months) of this, and those fees will turn into exactly what was suggested... higher prices overall, rather than piecemeal.

I'm with some of the other posts on this one. The customer experience relies on how you define the customer. The airlines typically make decisions that defer to their business customers. Most of these are doing short stays and not checking baggage or just expense the baggage fee to their company. Unlike other industries that have separate pricing by customer type (e.g., cable and telephone) the airlines can't segregate customers by personal or business and so sometimes disadvantage one when it benefits the other. This may be one of those cases. The answer: fly a personal-travel friendly airline like Southwest or JetBlue. WYSIWYG with them.

Well they're already planning on raising prices considerably this year so it's kind of a moot point. God forbid they deny their CEOs the multi-million dollar bonus.

Echoing what several others have said, but this does seem like a case in which they didn't think through all the repurcussions. I usually check my bag, even for business if I have time, so I don't have to deal with finding space in the overhead, and the accompanying stress. Now I'll carry it on, adding to the chaos.

And do you really want my family of four to show up with all the carry-ons we're "allowed" to have in addition to our toddlers? Yikes. If we all do that, there's no way flying will be close to a reasonable experience. JetBlue, here we come.

Could the overall cost be controlled by controlling ever expanding perks of executives.
I believe yes, lot of them are making their own packages and they are huge and at end of day passing that cost to the customer.