The Airline Industry has Baggage

“Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away…”

“Why yes I’d love to, but the baggage fees are too expensive!”

When it comes to travelling by air, we have all stood at the check-in desk, cringing as the digits slowly climb above the maximum allowance when it’s your personal belongings on the scales. You are already paying a good price for your plane ticket, plus the spending money you have saved up for your holiday and we all know duty-free is not cheap. So, paying an extortionate amount of money for the 0.3kg above allowance your luggage is, is the last thing you are going to want to do. It is because of this, and many other valid points, that overweight baggage fees should be banned.

Most airlines will claim: “You only pay for what you use” – does this mean by not eating or drinking or using the bathroom on board, we can have extra baggage for no cost? It doesn’t work like this, and not only are airlines charging us for our extra gear, they are constantly raising the price of what we pay. Statistics from the Bureau of Transportation show that airlines overall earn an average of $566 million on baggage fees alone, showing us it’s obviously a money making scam.

In terms of how much weight the total amount of luggage is, each person is allowed an average of 21.5kg of checked baggage and around 6-10kg of carry-on. If, for example, you were to take the maximum take-off load for a Boeing 747-400 and subtract the weight of the allowed baggage for the maximum 416 passengers plus aircrew, then account for other things such as the weight of the people themselves, how much the aircraft weighs at operational empty and things like cargo, fuel, and food and water, the aircraft would still have enough weight for each passenger to take with them roughly 3000 extra bags. Obviously, there isn’t actually enough space for such an amount of suitcases but this is further proof that the money we are charged is because airline companies are greedy thief’s and not because it is a necessity for them in order to fly us around the world.

Personal experience also shows that the amount of money you pay depends on the desk clerk, how good a day they are having, and whether or not you can charm them. Occasionally, it can also vary depending on the size of, or location of, your departure airport. Being 3.2kg over on the checked baggage and each of us carrying an extra piece of carry-on luggage, we should have paid a fortune. But the clerk gave us a smile and sent us on our way. However, another anonymous, exasperated traveller says “we were told our luggage was half an inch too long and they were going to charge us $49”. Would that same desk clerk have let us off with such an overweight bag? The desk staff can be biased. And, if they can let us off with it sometimes, why can’t they abolish overweight baggage fees completely?

Another point of argument is that a 747 can transport a space shuttle, so a few extra kilograms of luggage shouldn’t dent the maximum take-off load. Not only that, the government are also aware of the sheer amount of money that airlines make from baggage fees and have also told them to “stop the fee nonsense”. Further, airport staff are not careful with our bags, and no amount of money stops them from throwing about our luggage onto trollies and

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conveyer belts, and sometimes our luggage even gets lost. Theoretically, we could be paying for damage to our bags. Lastly, to avoid baggage fees, people will take bigger bags on board as your carry-ons often don’t get weighed and this slows down boarding processes, therefore causing delays to flights, etcetera. Said delays are a nuisance and an inconvenience to both the airlines and those who travel with them.

A large representation of the travelling population is of the opinion that baggage fees are preposterous. After all, they can’t expect us to travel without luggage. If, for example, we were going on holiday for two weeks, we could just about scrape by with the one checked bag they allow us (although some airlines make you pay for that, too). However, if you were to move away for a few months for work or even to go on an extended holiday, realistically, is that one bag going to cut it? The airlines take advantage of the fact that we don’t have much choice but to travel with them, and use it to leach even more money out of our pockets.

For the aforementioned reasons, overweight baggage fees must be banned because they are unnecessary, they must be banned because they are a money-making scam, and they must be banned because if airline companies were to do so, more people would be predisposed to travel with them, and the airlines would accumulate the money anyway. To ban overweight baggage fees would be a win-win situation for everyone, and that’s why it’s the only way forward for the airline industry. In fact, the first airline to abolish the fees may end up gaining the market share of air travel, and let’s face it, if there are no more arguments with passengers on a daily basis; you might also see increased productivity and higher employee morale.

“Come fly with me, let’s fly, let’s fly away…”

“Of course! We can glide, starry eyed now the baggage fees are gone!”

BibliographyTelegraph NewsBureau of TransportationGoogle

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