Airline industry insiders say passengers have become carried away with carry-on baggage, leading to costly delays. That’s prompting calls for changes to how airplanes charge for baggage, with some discount airlines like Sunwing and Spirit already beginning to flip the fee structure so passengers pay for the privilege of keeping their bags on board.
Blame FedEx, and Amazon.
So … Once upon a time, you’d get to bring one or two checked bags for free. Then FedEx came along and you could ship documents overnight (except it was really expensive). But they started to bring costs down and it became more reasonable to ship stuff that way, at which point the USPS, UPS and other carriers had to start offering similar options or risk becoming the second or third choice carrier. But they needed a way to quickly move letters and packages around the country without having to buy an entire fleet of airplanes.
And then a bright person said, “Hey, why do they have to be our airplanes?” And they went to United and American and all the other carriers and said, “Hey, we want to buy space in your baggage holds, and we’re willing to pay!” And suddenly the space under the plane where they tossed people’s bags stopped being a way to lose money (did to the extra fuel needed for the extra weight), it became a revenue stream, it was profitable, and the airlines rejoiced.
But now every suitcase a passenger brought up meant less space for those lovely, lovely packages. So the airlines started restricting suitcases - number, size, weight, whatever they could do to create more room for packages - and the start of Amazon only meant even more packages that wanted space. And other companies wanted to compete with Amazon, and packages increasingly needed timely delivery to ever more remote parts of the country.
Anyway, the upshot is that - in addition to squeezing in ever more passengers - nowadays, when you pay to bring along an extra suitcase or oversized/ heavy item, the airlines are actually charging you some of the revenue that they’re losing because that space is no longer available to carry lovely, lovely packages.
It wasn’t that the airlines were losing money on baggage, it was included in the ticket. It was that they wanted to double dip by charging for the baggage because they could also sell the space to the shipping companies.
It was included in the ticket because if you didn’t check a bag the belly would be empty. Now if you don’t check a bag they get to fill the belly with air freight, so they want you to try to jam your life into the overhead compartment so they can resell the belly to cargo customers.