- American, JetBlue and Alaska have all raised baggage fees this year.
- Carriers have changed the price to check a bag depending on whether travelers pay for it in advance or at the airport.
- Airlines and other companies have been grappling with how to grow profits while reining in costs, such as new labor contracts.
It’s a don’t care fee for those that make the airline money. Most of the economy travelers are once a year leisure travelers with zero brand loyalty and only buy based off of the cheapest fare, sometimes coupled with convenience.
The $5 fee doesn’t impact their purchase because it’s not in the base price. And if they’re truly cost conscious, they’ll do carryon, board in Group 4, and have it gate checked for free.
The 2023 numbers from Q4 agree with the consensus. For United it’s about the same as the other’s in the Big 3 (United, Delta, American). 12% of the passengers are business class (domestic “first” since US carriers don’t have first class) and they make between 75% and 80% of the revenue. For a 100 seat plane, which is like an Embraer that means the 12 butts up front make 80% of the money for United while the 88 butts in steerage class make 20% of the money. That’s 6.6% of flight revenue per business class passenger and 0.23% per economy pax.
The business class passenger is therefore 28x more valuable to United just on revenue. The business class passenger also will usually have more brand loyalty, they will choose a flight even if more expensive or worse routing, to fly with the airline because. Maybe just because. Maybe perks. But it doesn’t matter to United.
If you fly United business class you get 2 free bags. It doesn’t affect those United cares about.
Within the economy sections 20% of revenue over 10% of those are basic economy super duper cheap fares that are zero bags, also doesn’t affect them.
And additionally, the Big 3 airlines aren’t airline companies anymore. They are credit card banks that operate flying buses. That’s the most profitable and the most valuable asset (literally) that they have. It’s what the airlines even borrowed against during COVID as guaranteed collateral. If you sign up for the United credit card, you become valuable to United, and guess what?! No checked bag fees!
So all in all, this is a nothing burger that affects very few people, and United doesn’t give a crap if it does. If you want to be treated better, cough up the dough.
Taylor swift laughs
Ultimately air travel is not for those on a budget.
If you can afford priority boarding, lounge, don’t even worry about baggage fees, can afford even 1step upgraded seats, tsa pre and global entry, air travel is a breeze. Anything less is ugly.
We will use that $5 to make sure the doors are closed.
I haven’t flown in years. It’s simply too expensive.
If you factor in the amount of time wasted waiting around to get through security, waiting to get on the plane, waiting on the plane to take off, waiting at the gate after landing, waiting on your luggage, waiting on transportation from the airport, flying isn’t much faster than driving.
Gas may be expensive, but the buttfucking you get at the airport just isn’t worth it anymore.
I live south of Toledo and my parents live in Houston. If my brother (who lives in town) goes with me it’s cheaper for us to drive, plus we can take more stuff with us, but it takes us 2 days to drive there and 2 days to drive back vs about 8 hours total travel time (1.5 hours to the airport, 1.5 hours window for security and getting to the gate, 1.5-4 hours depending on if it’s a direct flight or has a layover, 1 hour from airport to my parents place). Obviously it depends on the distance, and i much prefer road trips, but it’s not always so clear cut.
Really depends on how far you travel. I hate the air travel process in general, but there really aren’t great alternatives to go across the country (U.S.). Need high speed rail, but the politics for that to be approved is soooo slow and complicated.
