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Five of the six major airlines in the United States plan to start charging coach passengers as much as $25 next month to check a second bag, the latest move in their quest to offset high fuel prices.
In case you were wondering, here are the airlines who’ll be charging a $25 fee for a second checked-in bag:
- Continental
- Delta
- Northwest
- United
- US Airways
AirTran will also be charging extra for a second checked-in bag, but they’ll only be asking for $10.
I can live with this fee; what really bugs me is airlines charging for seats with reasonable legroom, as United does with their so-called “Economy Plus” seating. At 5′ 11″, I’m average height for a North American, yet I have to fork over $65 for a seat where my legs won’t be pressed against the seat in front of me.
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At 6′4″ it is remarkably unfortunate. Woe is the person in front of me who thinks they would like to recline their seat. Nay nay my friend. Not going to happen.
A friend of mine is 7 feet and actually has to book the seat that’s at the very front (or sometimes the one at the emergency exit if that has more room too) because he really doesn’t fit in the regular seats.
It’s kind of ridiculous… If the problem were too many bags, charge for the carriage of an extra bag. The proper offset of high fuel prices is more expensive fares. The more expensive fuel is, the more expensive it is to haul our asses through the air, no matter how many bags we take along.
But none of the airlines will dare to raise fares to the point where they are insulated from fuel price fluctuation, because some competitor will eat a loss and undercut them. The whole industry is busy racing to the bottom while ignoring economic reality.
At 5′7″ or so, I fit quite comfortably into an airline seat. I just flew economy-class for about 17 hours from Hong Kong, and I was in the lap of luxury. It really offsets the increased earning power of tall men. Sure, you might get another $600 for every inch of height, but then you just have to spend it on airline seat upgrades.
Spirit Airlines charges for every checked bag.
I know we’re typically prisoners of the cities in which we live, and that A.C. may be a United stronghold, but down here in Redneck USA we mostly understand that they’re dead last in any customer-focused metric.
I live in Houston, which — while hot and flat — has the benefit of two of the best US airlines. For short flights, we’ve got Southwest; their 737s are still configured like coach seats from the 70s or 80s, with plenty of leg room for most folks (and comfier seats than any other major carrier’s coach seats).
For long hauls, we have Continental. They’ve butchered their coach seats like the rest of the majors, so they’re not as cushy as SWA’s, but the leg room is uniformly ok — unlike United, they’ve not created a bifurcated coach section dominted by seats for amputees.
None of this, of course, is likely to be useful to you.