Did these airline managers consider what a havoc they are creating in the cabin?
Airlines are raising checked baggage fees again.
Let me say first that, in principle, I have no problem with this. I like traveling light (I’ve come long way in 5 years of traveling) and I like the principle of everyone paying their own way: checked baggages do incur extra cost to the airlines, so there is no reason I, a traveler who always makes sure that he can carry everything on his back, should subsidize them.
But as with every change, there are unintended consequences. Some people, instead of packing light to make sure that they can carry everything on, simply carry on the bags (especially the medium size rollers) that they might have checked in. At least this seemed to be why overhead space was so scarce on my last flight from So. Cal. I was sitting relatively far in front (in fact, as far front as I have ever sat in airplanes that have 6 seats across), but I couldn’t find an overhead bin for my backpack: I had to trek about four or five rows further before finding a room in the corner somewhere.
Not being an airline manager or even a flight attendant, I don’t know how much this costs, in terms of potential plane delays and personnel costs as some carry-on bags have to be checked in later (and from what I’ve seen, they don’t seem to charge the fee in these instances). But if the airlines are jacking up their checked-in baggage fees, I hope they included the cost of more frequent and severe occurrences of incidences like this into their calculation.
In any case, I am not buying airline stocks any time soon, at least not until they shut down TSA.