This, and that they REFUSE to enforce their own carry-on restrictions.
People are dragging on duffle-bags of crap that should be checked, and taking overhead space needed by those that follow the rules.
What a gyp. I would never pay for a checked bag. I’d bring less and put it in a carry on if it came to it.
I’m fresh out of nickels and dimes.
This may kill the Skycaps that handle curb service. If they figure out their tips are going into management’s pocket, watch out.
The carry-on situation is nuts, none of the gate people have the balls to stop the jerks from taking on huge bags, duffles, and backpacks.
In Feb we went to St Thomas and a bunch of teenage kids going to some other island all had enormous backpacks. They were literally standing on the seats trying to stuff them into the overhead bins.
It's not just Delta. Most of them are saying we don't want your business. Like Continental today announcing they are cutting more jobs, because nobody is traveling. Gee I wonder why? Could it be that air travel has become one of the most unpleasant experiences you can have. Starting with TSA treating you like you are a criminal, to late and missed flights with no other flight options that day, and your lost or damaged luggage almost 50% of the time. I think most people feel they can live without air travel.
Free clue for the airlines: people like “discounts” more than they like “extra fees”, even if the price is the same in both instances.
Instead of charging extra for checked baggage, they should have a normal allotment of checked baggage (2) INCLUDED with the ticket price, but deduct a portion of the ticket price if, at booking, the customer selects that no baggage will be checked.
The fee structure is a 360, but the psychology is a 180. If you don’t want to piss customers off, the only change to the advertised price should be a downward change (excluding expected additions like taxes and shipping where applicable).
I understand the airlines are trying to game the results of comparison shopping websites (Travelociy, Expedia, Orbitz, etc), but even the rhetorical ‘Internet Grandma’ tends to catch on fast - after going through the first stage of booking a ticket, getting hit with extra fees, and then abandoning the transaction before the cc stage to see if the other guys pull the same trick.
Must be getting close to the time when the airlines cry poor mouth and want the tax payers to bail them out AGAIN.
Meanwhile the tax payers are getting taxed more, losing their jobs and also losing their homes.
Many airlines seem to have a very strange business model these days - they want to make the use of their services as unpleasant as possible. I don’t get it.
Why is it that NO ONE is asking the airlines why they have not retracted the baggage check fees they imposed when fuel was $4.00/gal plus?? It’s bad enough that they are tacking these fees on and pi$$ing off the flying public, but the fact that they are still adding NEW fees when the price of gas is down is nothing more, IMO, than price gouging!!