AA to charge for most* checked bags

[Veritas]

Jim, one of the biggest abusers I have seen lately are the flight attendents. Rollerboard, purse, lunch, overseas shopping, items to sell in the states from Peru etc.

Do you suggest that working and commuting pilots and flight attendants check their bags? Should that be done for each leg that they work? How do you suggest that they retrieve their luggage between flight segments as they run between gates and terminals to work their next leg? Maybe flight attendants should not eat while on duty for up to thirteen or fourteen hours at a time? (crew meals are no longer provided for them on most flights and often there is no time to buy food in between flights.)

Most flight crew members I know take with them the bare minimum that they need for the duration of their trips. Besides, they do not stow their bags in spaces designated for passenger carry ons.

 

[Veritas]

United and US Airways just matched these first bag charges.

United to Charge for First Checked Bag

US Airways to cut jobs, fleet; charge for 1st bag

 

[WingNaPrayer]

More need to pick up on this fee for bags - make it an across the industry standard.

For too long travelers have abused the airlines in moving their crap all over the country. Much of what passengers carry is stuff they don't need and the only reason they haul it is because the airlines have long allowed it. Of course, Northwest will be the lone hold-out.

AA employees need to apply this fee and make it stick - make the passengers pay. Too many will wait until the last minute to board in hopes of skirting the fees. However - AA flight attendants can now accept plastic on board 🙂 and the fee needs to be double when the passengers try to pull that last minute stuff.

I hate to say it but even AA will start playing with the luggage fee - waiving 5 bucks if you pay it on line or 10 bucks if you use a kiosk rather than an agent to check in. Those kiosks have been the free luggage pass long enough. I think the fee should be double or even triple for any passenger who uses a kiosk and claims no bags, then shows up at the gate with 2 or 3 bags. It doesn't take long to filter through the traveling community that AA has all the bases covered and you can't get away with it - if only AA would do it, and stick to their guns.

The problem is, they already have a laundry list of exceptions that shouldn't be in place either. I just don't happen to think AA should expect it's employees to subsidize plats with their paychecks who want to carry half a house when they travel. Plats won't care either, they'll gladly take your money so they don't have to pay. They are literally the worst moochers in the air!

I feel for the counter and gate agents who are going to suffer the brunt of passenger anger over baggage fees come June 15th, and within a week they will have heard every argument in the book from passengers as to why they should be exempt!

Best wishes to all the front line agents but get those fees!! Either get it from the pax now or it will come out of your paychecks later!

 

[kuro_kuma]

Well, I just read the briefing and everyone is still allowed the one carry on and one rollaboard. If they are within the in-cabin carry on policy (not oversized..which I've noticed don't pay when it doesn't fit at the gate anyway, etc), they don't have to pay to check their suitcase. Those are the people who check their one suitcase and bring on their purse or small tote that fits under the seat. Now they're going to attempt to bring them on since they don't get charged then. Those are the ones I'm worried about since the ones who bring on 3-4 bags and suitcases usually bring one rollaboard on anyway and we're already dealing with those. I just dealt with a transcon where the passenger pulled another's rollaboard out of the bin to put his there because it was above his seat and left it in the aisle since it's "his space"...and another who didn't want to put his laptop bag under his seat since someone's bag filled up the pull down bin over his seat so it wasn't fair. Anyway, good luck to the res agents, flight attendants, ground personel and tsa who have to monitor the bags at every point. Luckily they're estimating it effects only about 23% although on those widebodies with small bins, we barely (if we even do) get all the bags on a flight that isn't even full.

 

[jimntx]

So when you check my bag on the jetbridge - and I have no cash on me - how in the world are you going to process my credit card? Good luck!

Seems you may have identified a way around the system - bring your bag on board - and if there isn't any room just check it at the plane. Talk about late flights!

No, we got a corporate email that said if you attempt to board the a/c with more than the one carry-on and one small personal item or an item too big for the overheads, we are to send you back up the jetbridge to the gate agent. Yeah, right.

Of course, no one in management is willing to answer the question of how in the friggin heck did you get all the way to the bottom of the jetbridge in the first place if you have too many/oversized bags. This is NOT going to be pretty, and, of course, I have to work Sunday, the first day of this incipient debacle. 😱

On the downbeat...
OH, Nobody knows the trouble I've seen.

 

[WingNaPrayer]

Passengers will try anything, and argue everything. Passenger abuse of the airlines is a good chunk of the reason they are all in such dire financial jeopardy. Time to put it to a stop dead in it's tracks!

No more free rides for your luggage, no more cheap tickets. People don't have to fly all over hell and back. Make ticket prices reasonable, yet profitable. If your aunt Fanny can't fly for more than 49 bucks, then let her stay her ass home - simple as that.