A case for the 'reverse bag check fee'
By now, we’ve all seen those Southwest Airlines ads boasting the outfit’s zero dollar bag check fee.
They’re popular commercials – dubbed “pure marketing genius” by some people – but what if they actually forecasted the future of air travel?
What if, instead of levying infuriating fees on customers, airlines not only let you check bags for free, but paid you to check them and still turned a nice profit? What if?
In fact, a case has been floating around the Internet for months now to make a movement just like this happen.
The argument breaks down like this:
According to Joe Brancatelli of Portfolio.com, there’s strong evidence to suggest airlines actually lose money with their bag check fees.
With many airlines, people not checking their bags – which can cost as much as $50 for an extra suitcase – and opting for carry-on luggage slows down the rate passengers board planes. Slower boarding times mean fewer flights and, subsequently, less travelers an airline can charge for tickets.
Yet if everyone chose to check their luggage, something preposterous to suggest now considering the current fees, airlines could rifle in God-knows-how-many extra flights per year and chug business along nicely.
So why not eliminate bag check fees altogether or, to really hammer the point home, offer a reverse bag check fee and reward passengers for checking their luggage?
If an airline, for example, offered a $25 rebate on airfare (or reward points or free meals or whatever, as Reuters suggests), travelers might be much more inclined to check their luggage and give carriers an opportunity to charter more flights per day.
Now, for an idea like this to work, there’d have to be some kind of give-and-take between travelers and the airlines. Considering passengers would have to stand by carousels and painstakingly wait for their luggage after each flight, maybe $25 wouldn’t be enough of a reimbursement. Maybe the airline would need to allow $35 per checked bag in rebates. Maybe $40.
But whatever the agreement, there sure appears to be some merit to an airline offering the reverse bag check fee.
Will a discount Canadian carrier, maybe, try the approach to see if it can boost their bottom line? Perhaps, but if anything’s sure about the proposed strategy, it’d give a shake-up to a system that’s far from perfect.
As one pundit mused last month, “The result (of a reverse bag check fee)? Passengers would get on and off planes more quickly, the airlines would make more money, and everybody would be happier.
"It’s a vast improvement from the status quo.”
By Jason Buckland, MSN Money
Posted by: Disgruntled flyer | Apr 7, 2021 5:04:55 PM
Seems to me that rewarding people to check bags will simply encorage them to bring more luggage, eating up yet more fuel and offsetting any cost savings. You might get on faster (which I dounbt) but ticket prices would have to go up that much more as a result. And, since the economies of scale on this side of the border already don't work I can't see this happening. Pack lightly!
Posted by: Frequentunhappy flyer | Apr 7, 2021 8:02:09 PM
Basically a ticket price is how much it costs the airline to fly you and your luggage from point A to point B. And to do this requires fuel. I believe your bag and YOU should step on the scale. If in total it is less than say 200 pounds total weight it is all free. Then the airline charges say $5/10 pounds after that.
The longest time getting spent in the airport is going through security. If by bring no carry on baggage and checking it all, then having a seperate line for those with no carry on baggage, you would speed up loading and you would be able to load faster and get more planes in the air.
Posted by: Keith | Apr 8, 2021 8:16:13 AM
Air Canada is half way there. AC knocks a few dollars off your ticket if you opt to take less check-in luggage to begin with. So rather than making you pay for checking-in luggage, they reward you if you check-in less.
I have long considered this a far more decent approach than that taken by airlines in the US. It encourages passengers to only check-in as much luggage as they need and the incentive is not so high as to encourage passengers to carry all their baggage on-board.
Unfortunately, the trend of carrying everything in the cabin is with us to stay. Newer aircraft are coming with larger overhead luggage bins that only make current policies easier to accomodate (see the CSeries and the 787).
Posted by: ExAirlineEmplyee | Apr 8, 2021 8:18:45 AM
Airlines are restricted at any airport by the number of "slots" they receive at said airport not by how many planes they can get in/out. More check-in means more congestion and delays at the check-in counters which are on the wrong side of security, rather than the controllable delays in boarding at the gate. Sounds like someone is wishfull thinking as well as overpacking.