柏忠毅的 'the Daily Biff' - 2009 06 23

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Tue, 23 Jun 2009

Annoyances: Luggage Charges Hurt Families
There are only two airlines left that do not charge for the luggage that you check when flying: Southwest and JetBlue. I do not fly that often, maybe just 3 or 4 times per year... and almost always with my family. When I fly by myself on business, it's easy to just carry on everything. But when flying with young kids, it is impossible to not check some luggage. The kids just simply cannot carry their luggage on, and we (the parents) can't carry it for them and carry the kids. Luggage charges, therefore, impact families traveling with young kids the hardest.

This is probably the most unfair business practice in all of America.

Which do you think costs more to fly? My 5-yr-old 40-lb little girl, her 5-lb backpack, and her 30-lb piece of checked luggage or a 200-lb adult and his (or her) 25-lb carry-on? On the one hand, the total weight of my little girl with her checked luggage and other items will be 75 pounds total, whereas the adult passenger will weigh in at 225 pounds (or more)! The airline will assess a fee for my little girl's checked bag, whereas the adult with a carry-on is not assessed a fee. I pay the same fare for my kids as adults that weigh 3 times as much. How is that fair?!

Airlines should be encouraging families with young kids to fly, not penalizing them. Fortunately, the two most family friendly airlines in the US - Southwest and Jet Blue - do not charge for checked luggage. (Well, not yet anyway.)

What really should happen is that airlines should have the ticketed passenger stand on a scale with his (or her) luggage. Anything over 300 lbs should be charged a penalty of $1/lb. Such a practice would create an outrage to be sure, but really - charging passengers per pound is the only fair way to go about it. If you send a package via UPS or Fedex overnight (via air), do you not presume that the charges for a 225-lb package would be considerably more than a 75-lb package?! Of course. Likewise, do you think that it costs the airlines more money to fly my little girl and her checked luggage (@ ~75 lbs) than it does to fly a full-grown adult and his (or her) carry-on (@ ~225 lbs). Of course not. It is absurd.

Charging for checked luggage is insulting to families everywhere that fly with young children and it is a practice that needs to be stopped. There should be an exemption for young kids from these outrageous fees.

:: Posted by rus on Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:56 pm
:: Filed under /annoyances

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