One of the new annoyances of traveling by air is the airline industry’s plethora of baggage fees. There is even a bill in Congress to address the issue. Later, you will see how the fees are exacerbating the other major headache of traveling by air—the time travelers spend in the airport security line.
While it is doubtful you’ll see any relief any time soon, the bill aims to protect travelers from excessive fees. Under the bill’s provisions, a passenger gets one free checked bag per flight. The status quo of free carry-on bags remains guaranteed. The proposed law also ensures passenger’s access to water and bathrooms during flights.
Perhaps the most outrageous example of excessive baggage fees occurred a couple of years ago. An entire unit of soldiers returning from active duty in Afghanistan and traveling on military orders ended up paying nearly $3,000 in checked baggage fees. The situation arose from a miscommunication of the airline’s baggage policy within their military orders. The airline eventually offered to reimburse the servicemen, but earned itself a very public back eye and a great deal of negative publicity because two of the soldiers posted a video on YouTube about the fee gouging.
It is no surprise the airline as well as the other air carriers immediately changed their policies concerning active duty military baggage fees. One has to wonder why the issue even made it past the check in counter. In fact, you can speculate whether the airline would have changed the policy if the soldiers had not taken the initiative and made the video.
The airlines are making billions from the baggage fees they started charging in 2005. The industry instituted the fees because fuel costs went through the roof. In the last four years, their take was in the neighborhood of $6 billion. Here’s the real shocker: these fees are tax free; they are exempt from the 7.25% tax levied on tickets.
The airline industry claims that when you compare airline ticket fares, a ticket costs 20 percent less than it did 15 years ago. When you look at fares online, the officially published ticket prices are lower than they were 15 years ago. The cost of the official ticket may be less, but by the time you finish paying the add-on fees, the ticket costs $400 or more. If you think about it, airlines are making more money with in fees than they’re making operating the airline. And again, it’s tax free.
Travelers are feeling the frustration. They are bringing more and more carry-on bags. This is the second repercussion of the fees. The carry-on bags are often crammed with belongings. The security screening process grinds to a crawl with all these extra bags. The TSA reported checking 59 million more bags last year than the year before. This year, they expect the number of carry-ons to jump another 28 million.
Not surprisingly, the frustration about the extra cost baggage fees add to travel has now become the frustration of waiting much longer to get through security. In fact, a travel industry survey revealed 72% of airline travelers felt the long wait is now the biggest frustration of air travel.
All of this makes the introduction of the bill to Congress seem sensible. Although passenger traffic increased by 3 percent, the amount of checked baggage dropped nearly 17 percent. At security checkpoints, longer lines are the result. Overworked screeners must expend more effort to detect contraband. The TSA may claim security does not suffer; the assertion does not ring true though, particularly during the peak travel days and seasons. The cost to add the equipment, security lanes and screeners to accommodate this growing river of carry-on bags runs about $260 million a year. We as taxpayers would foot the bill for the airlines’ tax free bounty.