Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

WSJ: Baggage Becomes Big Ticket Item

I understand that airlines need to make a profit. And, it’s tough - what with rising fuel costs, overweight passengers, the unions and various service inefficiencies. However, someone at the airlines should consider this question as they’re rolling their next doobie: “Hey, man, do we, like, really want to totally p** off our customers before they even get on the plane?”

Some snips from the article:

“United says one of every four customers checks multiple bags, and they are more likely to be leisure travelers — who likely paid cheaper fares than other travelers. United did exempt its elite-level frequent fliers and travelers with expensive, refundable tickets from the new baggage fees. The new second-bag fee by itself will generate $100 million in annual revenue, the airline said. That’s two million customers hit with round-trip second-bag fees.” (Wow,we’ve got another $100M and 2M people ticked off at us. Far out! Pass the bong!)

…“So a second checked bag that is overweight and oversized will cost $450 round-trip at United after May 5. At Delta Air Lines Inc., a third checked suitcase that weighs 71 pounds and is oversized costs $660 round-trip.”

And my fav: “United, however, says it won’t refund baggage fees even if it loses your bag.”

I’m a light traveler. I once spent a month working in Europe with a single “magic bag” (as my co-workers marveled). So, this won’t affect me. Even the “overweight” bag I brought back from vacation in October was only 63 pounds (and that was at least 10 pounds of books.) So, it’s not so much the fees - it’s the way they’re doing this. We passengers think of ourselves as people. Airlines see us as big fat whining bags of cash.

P.S. Any bets that the next time you or I fly - we’ll jump through these hoops then get on the plane and be smacked in the head by people blithely waddling on with bags the size of a Mini-Cooper? No fees, nobody stopping them. Nahhh…I wouldn’t take that bet.

P.P.S. Based on my past experience with American Airlines - they’ll probably now just beat us overweight slobs to death…
but they’ll do it while calling us “sir” or “m’am.”

Related Post:
Air Travel - Speaking as The Cow

Tags: emarketing, marketing, marketing troubleshooting, customer service, United, Airline problems, American Airlines customer service, American Airlines problems