aaamichfan

April 6th, 2010 at 12:53 PM ^

Shucks.

Looks like I'll have to begin wearing my entire collection of leopard-print thongs onto the plane........

UMaD

April 6th, 2010 at 12:57 PM ^

While I understand it, I'm sick of seeing people bringing on giant carry-ons to avoid baggage fees and bringing on multiple personal items on top of it. This fills up the overheads and leaves me having to cram my jacket or small bag under my seat. I also don't enjoy waiting 20 minutes to board a plane because everyone has to go hunting for space for their oversized luggage or organize the 3 bags they brought on board just so.

If people behaved reasonably in the first place airlines wouldn't feel a need to take these measures. Even though everyone hates it, charging for luggage was a logical market outcome. The rush to use up the overhead space is a logical response. I think the airlines should have done this the minute they started charging for checked luggage.

ZooWolverine

April 6th, 2010 at 1:08 PM ^

Agreed that it's annoying that the baggage fees have caused everyone to try to cram everything they own into the overhead bins. Strongly disagree that it's people mis-behaving that's causing the new fee. This is a money grab by Spirit, not anything else.

bouje

April 6th, 2010 at 3:02 PM ^

Who brings a medium sized duffle bag filled to the brim with clothes that I can easily shove into the overhead compartment (even on tiny ass puddle jumper planes I'm talking 2x2 or 1x2 here people). I then also have a backpack. I also take approximately 10 seconds to leave the plane.

So why the hell should I be punished I'm probably faster at planing and deplaning than most people on board. And honestly your fucking jacket can either be behind y ou on your seat or underneath. Never ever EVER should a jacket go in the overhead compartment.

Jeff

April 6th, 2010 at 4:08 PM ^

If you only bring as much as you claim, I have no problem with you. I agree with the other posters about hating people who bring way too much carry-on though. Lots of people bring on giant bags, or 3 or 4 bags and take up all the room in the compartments.

Nobody ever enforces the size limits or quantity limits on carry-on baggage. After the London liquid thing, there was about a week with no carry-on luggage allowed. I thought that TSA might start enforcing the already proscribed limits. The airlines don't want to do so, because then they'll make customers mad and they already do that enough on their own.

I see no reason a jacket shouldn't go in the overhead compartment. I hate putting my jacket underneath the seat because I don't want my feet (or others') getting it all dirty.

bouje

April 6th, 2010 at 4:49 PM ^

2 carry-ons and I couldn't bring both onto the plane (this was while trying to board the plane). When I tried to go off the plane to put it planeside and get a tag for it the "wonderful flight attendant" *cough* Bitch *cough cough* said that I could not exit the plane for safety reasons. I said so what do you want me to do here?

I was pretty pissed off to tell you the truth but if there's one thing I've learned from TV shows like Seinfeld is this: Never ever have a conip-shit on a plane.

MH20

April 6th, 2010 at 1:12 PM ^

According to my buddy who works at Steelcase, a lot of their top executives have been doing this for a while (especially for international travel), though I think it was more because of constant lost/damaged luggage. Certain situations it could probably be cheaper, too.

doughboy

April 6th, 2010 at 1:26 PM ^

Example:

If you have your own UPS account, you could send a 25lb package from Detroit to Orland for $13.30. So I ship anything I want down to the Orlando hotel three days before I go - call the hotel and let them know it is coming - arrive at hotel to check-in and find my "package" waiting in my hotel room.

Brhino

April 6th, 2010 at 4:07 PM ^

Airlines are pulling this kind of nonsense with ever increasing frequency for two reasons:

1. The widespread use of web sites that compare ticket prices from several different airlines to help users "find the best price" gives the airlines incentives to lower ticket prices as much as possible while applying other fees as needed to make their target profit.

2. Fees and add-on charges are taxed differently than actual ticket prices. They might not be taxed at all, I'm not sure. In setting up the fees this way, airlines are paying less taxes.

Starko

April 6th, 2010 at 4:51 PM ^

The real question is whether airline travel is a viable enterprise at all. It is extremely energy inefficient and very expensive to make safe. It's a shame that as a society we haven't put more of our resources toward developing high-speed trains as an alternative.

jmblue

April 6th, 2010 at 5:14 PM ^

Well, Europe has high-speed trains all over and it hasn't really led to a reduction in air travel. I don't see the demise of the airplane happening anytime soon. BTW, why do you say it's very expensive to make safe? Where is the expense there? Engine maintenance? Air-traffic controlling?

SysMark

April 6th, 2010 at 5:41 PM ^

There are many things to not like about it but one thing you can't claim in that airline travel is not safe. Statistically it is extremely safe. The problem is when there is an incident it is often catastrophic and accordingly gets a lot of attention. There are a real lot of planes up there every day that never have a hint of a problem.

befuggled

April 6th, 2010 at 8:18 PM ^

There are lots of shorter runs where rail makes sense. You could connect most of the Midwest to Chicago pretty easily, for instance. Going from Minneapolis to Detroit through Chicago is roughly 700 miles. Taking a high speed train at an average speed of 150 miles an hour would make that about a 5 hour trip. Still slower than a plane, but not at all bad compared to driving--and faster than some of the direct flights I've taken over comparable distances when you factor in all the airport bullshit. In some parts of the country it makes more sense than others, but that isn't to say high speed rail is a bad idea.

A Case of Blue

April 6th, 2010 at 11:50 PM ^

My Colombian co-workers (and I have lots of them!) seem to love Spirit. I just priced an imaginary flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Medellin, and even with bag fees, it comes out to like $200, compared to $350 on some of the big names. They might be awful, but I'm pretty sure that Latin@ expats make up 90% of their business, and they really don't have any competition price-wise in that department.