This article says, in part:

"FORT WORTH — American Airlines, hit hard by escalating fuel prices, said Wednesday passengers will be hit with fees to check any bag, starting with tickets purchased after June 15."


It's $15 for the first bag.

Good thing I never bring more than a carry on.

If you need to pack more, or pack a knife, or a gun, you're gonna pay more.

I HIGHLY suggest you get an eVest, its like a whole extra bag.

That's just going to encourage more people to bring everything they own as carryon luggage, and cramp up the cabin more, as well as slow down boarding and disembarking from the planes.

I have a strong dislike for the oversized carryons. I may need to get that vest.

I was thinking the same thing. Instead of trying to "hide" a price hike in the already expensive fuel surcharge or ticket price which people will just swallow but otherwise ignore, you're going to have all these people who think they're being smart by bringing everything but the kitchen sink on board with them.

Watch, you're going to have more annoying situations like all the overhead bins getting full earlier and earlier before a big chunk of the passengers have even boarded. I feel for those passengers that board just in time and there's no overhead space, but now it's going to be people who are plenty early at the gate, but just because they sit towards the rear, their overhead bins will all be taken. It's bad enough that the airlines are cutting back on flights so that each plane flies as full as possible. Now it's cabin space that is going to be at a premium.

Pack Small, your under-seat area is always YOURS. The eVest is great, great great for flying.

I have an eVest. It's great and I love it to death but be careful not to get carried away...If I went through airport security with all 40 pockets full of stuff not only would I weigh an extra 30 lbs but I'd miss my flight while removing every trinket and gizmo to explain what it is and that the wires running through the 'PAN' conduits are NOT part of a bomb or improvised terrorist device.

yet another reason to hate flying

I'm booked for 2 round trips (4 segments) this summer - I guess I better figure on spending $45 more each way (4 people, but can fit everything in 2-3 bags)

And watch… as soon as they lose some people’s luggage, they won’t even offer to refund the $15 per bag fee. Reliable service just because you’re paying extra for it?… Not in this lifetime!

Come Oct it may get interesting for us. We have a cruise booked, with a flight back "home," the entire thing already paid for. BUT, apparently the airline tickets have not actually been purchased yet by the cruiseline (who is making all travel arraingments)...

I keep thinking what we really need is a high-speed rail system. In parts of Europe the trains are faster than flying. Planes are faster when they get going but trains suffer far fewer delays.

EEK

We are planning a cruise for 09 and boy is it different than 2000!!!

The problem with "High speed rail" (and this coming from a BIG proponant of rail - funny story at end) is that MOST of the country does NOT have the population density to support it. Pick a country in the world thta HAS High speed rail

Japan has approx 340 people per square KM of land area
France has approx 112 people per sq KM of land area (Metropolitan France)
The US? Approx 33 people per sq KM of land area

Basically, once you get outside the East/West coast "megalopolises" of the East/West coast, there just isn't enough population density within a distance to support High speed rail (Remember "BoWash" - or the NE Corridor as it's usually called by demographers in the USA has 55 Million people in it, and California is 36 Million - 91 Million out of 300 - almost a 1/3)

Read about "the depopulation of the Mid West" and the like, they don't have the population to support many towns anymore (towns are folding regularly).

A LOT of this has lead to the old political/demograpic insult of "Fly Over country" - Thing is, it's a HUGELY important part of the country (Folks, your food comes from there, and a LOT of your natural resources). Part (a large part) of what is driving the depopulation of the planes is pure agricultural effeciency - if you increase crop yields by say 20% (which has happened over say the last 100 years - and probably greater than that), if you don't grow the population by 20%, you need less acres under cultivation - you need less farmers. On top of "Yield/Acre", with the huge increase in mechinization and the like, the mean farm size has gotten huge - to quote a farmer I know via a friend, "If you don't have 300 acres, your a hobbiest". Farms used to be 20-100 acres. Now they are 1000 acres, and are run by just a couple more people than that old 20 acre farm. What happened to those people who ran the other 50 farms? Simple - they moved away, to the suburbs of the cities (which also helped the small farms in the suburbs die)

It's really simple demographics...

And is you look, places with density have "commuter rail" and High speed corridor rail already

The Funny Story:
One of my wife's relatives was a high end consultant to one of the major railroads (won't say which one) - Back circa Mid 80s, he was saying "The railroads are dead" (we were talking freight) - I had pointed out 2-3 law changes and I said "You have not factored this in, business is going to BOOM - do NOT pull the ROW along X (they were single tracking some stuff)" - 10 or so years later, he told me "Boy were you right" (The railroad as busy double tracking where I told them they should never have removed the track)

As I said - there are laws that if changed could make it a bit better, but when you thing "High speed rail" in the USA, just remember all those "empty' (of passengers) miles you have to build across and maintain

Our only prior cruise was in '05, hopefully this one will go as well as that one did. This one will be 19 days, hope we don't get sick and tired of water after the first week or so...

This is just getting silly... Just increase the ticket price $15 already then instead of playing this game. I, for one, don't want to wind up searching for a place to put my carry on.

How about the times when the airline forces you to check a bag because there isn't enough room? Should you have to pay for that?

Mike brings up a good point. You have paid for your ticket and now they say you cannot take all of that on board and must check at least one bag. Your price will be re-adjusted after your trip?

Just another reason I never fly on my own nickel. If my employers want to send me somewhere I'll gladly check all my bags and not care a bit about the extra $15 or $30. If I'm paying, I'll take my truck. . . Hint taken. . .

I never use the PAN and cable bits (no iPod) and all that. I put the whole thing through xray, no loss of speed through the gates.

Americans consume 25 percent of the world's petroleum but possess only two percent of the world's supply. If you started - today - to try to find oil in the AWNR it will take several years to get it online.
A USGS study estimated that only 3.2 billion to 6.3 billion barrels would be ''economically recoverable'' from the refuge over the 50-year life of the oil field (USGS Fact Sheet 1998).
At current consumption levels, 3.2 to 6.3 billion barrels represents is a six- to eight-month national supply. Proponents of drilling claim that the ANWR recoverable amount is in the 10 to 16 billion barrels range, which means that we're looking at a supply of less than 2 years (actually it would last longer than that, because you simply can't physically pump that fast).

Quite honestly, if you're looking for an economic argument for ANWR, it's just not there. On the other had, Texas and Arizona are shaping up to be MAJOR sources of Wind and Solar power, so the money probobly will be better spent (and invested!) there for better economic returns. There's already been some serious investment in this area, there will be more.

Hint taken.

I don't really think this is the place to debate our energy policy.... (strong hint mode)

I always get a kick out of this one. Flying out of Denver, I dismiss the East Coast as "flyover country" on my way to Europe - gets me some chuckles and the occasional hard look...

"American is already dealing with confusion over the new fee on a first checked bag. Spokesman Tim Wagner said passengers whose carry-on must be checked because the overhead bins are full won't be charged. He said only about half of U.S. travelers check at least one bag."

from
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080522/airlines_outlook.html

Well, at least that is good.

When flying for business, I almost always tried to get away without checking a bag. However, travel someplace with the Mrs. and a little one in toe and try not to check one...

"...only gave him a five dollar tip. Sorry, but that guy probably gets so many tips a day that he's doing just fine..."

That would be my guess too. Plus he probably gets a pretty good salary/benefits. Guess I spent too many years as a "public servant" to get all worked up over tipping...

I'm sorry but when did a $5 dollar tip for handling bags become bad?

Last I heard a couple a bucks a bag was standard for major airports. Up to $5 if a bag is exceptionally large or heavy. IMHO a fin would be about right for two average bags.

On the there hand some of the skycap and porter trade is a shakedown with the guy grabbing a hand bag, tossing it into a cab and smiling with his hand out. Sort of like the squeegee guys at street corners. They do nothing, or next to nothing, sometimes less than nothing, and then guilt you into a tip.

There are some that do real and useful work speeding people and their bags securely through the crowds. The best have connections with the cabbies and security so you get a good driver and move swiftly. They also coordinate with other passengers and drivers to make the most efficient use of time and space so you save money. A service well worth $20 or more.

But for every good one there seems to be at least one that is running a shakedown glorified by a hat and jacket.

I just checked a bag at LaGuardia last weekend. It had a sign posted that the fee to curb check a bag was $2 per bag. The guy who got tipped by IzzyJG99's Mom did better than the guy who checked me in. I tipped, but he did not get $5 in all, only $4.

Although, I would've given him a $5 if I had it, mostly because I kind of see that as the normal going rate for curbside, based on past comments and experiences.

There was one guy I gave at least $20 to a few years ago, but he got me out of and around a line when I was late for the plane.

If you look at the math, these guys work for probably 8 hours a day and check in on average probably a bag at least every five minutes. (When they are busy, I think it's a bag a minute, so I am liberally figuring in some slack time.) That's at least an additional $128 a day on top of any hourly wage, with just $2 per bag. Most have to do more bags than that and get more per bag than that.

Back in the late 90's I was put in charge of Skycaps by the airline that I used to work for. Managed a work force of over 300 of them for a few years.
Overall they are good hard working folks that do their best each and every day. They made significantly less than minimum wage because of tipping. Trust me...they made out just fine!
A decent Skycap working 4-6 hours a day (most of them worked part-time back then) would make between $100 and 150 per day CASH! A very good to excellent Skycap would make double that!
It all depended on which shift they worked (seniority got the best shifts) and how good they were with customer service.

Now that I'm retired whenever I travel I try to use Skycaps. For good to excellent service I tip $5/bag. Average service gets $2/bag.

"...guilt you into a tip..."

Fat chance of that with me. I don't mind tipping for good service, but I draw the line at that kind of BS...

I agree... I have no problem tipping for good service. When I get bad service, they are lucky if they get anything...

My philosophy is that I start with a set % of tip. What a waiter/waitress does can either increase it or decrease it.

"...When I get bad service, they are lucky if they get anything..."

I used to just add the tip onto the bill when I payed by credit card, but recently had it explained to me that if I do that the employee has to pay taxes on the money, if I leave cash they may not. So now even that depends on the quality of the service. If I have lousy service and am leaving cash I leave a nickle. Leave nothing and they will just think that you are cheap. But for really lousy service I write "no tip due to poor service" on the tip line of the bill. I figure that someone up the chain will read that, and hopefully do something about it...

Oh, I've left a penny tip for a waitress once... I remember ordering a specific beer and she said they were out. A table next to ours ordered one about 10 mins after I placed my order and they got theirs... I was like WTF?

On top of that, took forever to get our food and it was cold... I was not a happy person that night.

I also subscribe to the art of trying to leave a cash tip so they don't have to pay tax on it.