High Cost of X-tra luggage

[Kip Powick]

Spirit will charge fliers who check more than one bag

Checking two bags on low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines? Then get ready to pay up. "Starting Saturday, the Miramar, Fla.-based company will charge $10 for that second bag, making the low-cost carrier the only airline in the country to impose such a fee. Other airlines permit passengers to check two bags at no cost, while Southwest allows three checked bags for free," writes the South Florida Sun Sentinel. For fliers checking more than two bags, Spirit will charge fliers $100 for each bag over two. The Detroit Free Press writes that Spirit was "once known for its liberal baggage policies," but says the carrier now will have one of the strictest luggage policies among U.S. airlines. The Sun-Sentinel adds that "the move by Spirit, an airline that has gained attention by offering seats for as low as 1 cent plus taxes and fees, is a way for the firm to increase revenues while maintaining discount fares, marketing chief Barry Biffle said Monday."

"We're making some things optional rather than mandatory. For those who want the extras, they can still get them but they have to pay for them," Biffle says. Customer reaction was mixed. Predictably, some were against any new fees –- such as Detroit-to-Fort Lauderdale customer Ruth Ann Wallace. "I think it's terrible," she says to the Sun-Sentinel. "I only had one bag this time, but things get pretty hard in the winter and I usually need to pack extra things." Others, however, seemed to take the new fees in stride. Florida traveler Marla Oxenhandler tells the paper that the $10 fee would not be enough to convince her to take a different airline when she flies by herself. "However, when my husband, Scott, and our two teenage children head north, the luggage fee could send me looking at other airlines," she says.

[conehead]

Florida traveler Marla Oxenhandler tells the paper...

Didn't Marla work for AC Cargo?

[Guest Crow]

What gets me is that a 100 lb lady who goes over on the baggage by 5 pounds has to pay up, while the 300 lb fellow with a carryon has to pay nothing extra, even though the obese passenger is really costing the airline more.

I guess it would be too politically incorrect to charge people for the weight of the "whole package".