> A point that Tom also conveniently ignores, when assigning blame, is that THE > AIRLINE > has to sell a product people will buy. As the great American public has > consistently > demonstrated, they will buy the product at the cheapest price point, no > matter what > other drawbacks there are. That means that THE AIRLINE will do everything it > can to > keep the base price down, even if this means add-on fees for checked baggage. > That > same spirit of cheapness is why people will try and bring on too many (or too > large) > carry-on items - they aren't prepared to pay an extra $10 for comfort, and so > they > make everybody else suffer. But I would certainly hate to be the agent that > had to > tell the worst abusers that they couldn't take *that* on board. >
I have to disagree with that analysis, in part. Of course people want things at the cheapest price point, but they also realize that prices do go up. What people don't want to do is pay an EXTRA fee for something that for the last 60 years appeared to be FREE. The smart thing for the airlines to have done is to increase ticket prices by $10/$20 for every single passenger, a hidden luggage fee. Prices go up from time-to-time anyway. Everyone would be paying for checked luggage, whether they checked it or not, and most people would not even notice unless it pushed the price upward of an even $100 or $200. On higher priced tickets it would go virtually unnoticed. The airlines would have come out ahead, they would not have to handle the additional burden of an additional transaction, credit card processing, software changes, every single thing with regard to luggage would have stayed the same. Many people would still check their luggage, and overhead bins would be less crowded. Tom -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
