Just in time for Thanksgiving, United States Senators Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Ben Cardin, D-Md., introduced legislation to protect travelers from excessive fees and declining quality of service. Their Airline Passenger BASICS – or Basic Airline Standards to Improve Customer Satisfaction – Act would require airlines to allow passengers one checked and one carry-on bag for free.
After years of efforts by a dedicated group of passenger rights advocates including the Consumer Travel Alliance, Consumers Union, National Consumers League and the Consumer Federation of America, this is the first positive move to come out of Congress answering the problems of extra baggage fees.
Airlines have refused to share these baggage fees with travel agents of any sort or to allow passengers to compare the total cost of travel since 2008. Finally, with baggage fee collections soaring into the billions of dollars, the Director of TSA announcing that baggage fees were costing his agency hundreds of millions of dollars and a phalanx of consumer organizations meeting regularly with Capitol Hill staffers, Senators Landrieu and Cardin’s bill will force airlines to deal with this issue.
The airlines’ checked baggage fees have been a financial boon to the airline industry but a comparison-shopping bane to airline passengers and a baggage-screening detriment to TSA workers trying to scan an increasing load of carry-on luggage.
“When an airline advertises a flight, that is how much it should cost, plain and simple. Passengers should not be charged additional fees for checked or carry-on baggage, drinkable water or other reasonable requests. Air travel can be a stressful experience for many reasons, but unfair fees for basic amenities should not be one of them,” said Sen. Landrieu. “Passengers have been nickeled and dimed for far too long and something has to be done about it. Air carriers should be required to provide a minimum standard of service to their passengers or face additional fees – that is what the Airline Passenger BASICS Act and the FAIR Act will do.”
So far, advocates have shied away from calling for the elimination of baggage fees or other ancillary fees. Instead, the Consumer Travel Alliance has been campaigning for full disclosure of these fees at the time of planning flights to allow passengers to compare airfares and fees prior to purchasing airline tickets.
These extra charges seemed to be embedded in the airline economics and the thought was that though the fees may not be eliminated, at least consumers should be made aware of them during the purchase process.
The airlines have steadfastly refused to disclose these fees or release the baggage fees to travel agents. Even on their own websites, airlines do not reveal the final baggage fees until the time of check-in.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) in its latest rulemaking mandated that at the very least airlines should reveal baggage fees on itineraries that are created when e-tickets are created. Even this mandate by DOT has been opposed by the airlines. It seems that what the airlines call “simple and understandable” baggage fees are too complex for the computer wizards at the airlines to track ticket by ticket.
With the proliferation of exclusions to baggage fees provided to elite members of frequent flier programs and other exclusions granted to holders of certain credit cards, calculating specific baggage charges becomes extremely complicated and comparisons of various baggage fees across airlines requires computing power that the airlines do not possess.
Though the worldwide computer reservation systems, known as GDSs, that power almost all travel agent bookings can make these kinds of calculations, the reticence of the airlines to share their baggage fees has hindered development of new systems that would serve the needs of passengers who want to compare prices.
The Landrieu/Cardin Basic Airline Standards to Improve Customer Satisfaction Act, is a move in the right direction. Even though the Consumer Travel Alliance has not supported a strictly legislative approach to baggage fees, this bill may stun the airlines into dealing with this issue of ancillary fees through a regulatory program designed to make the full cost of travel decipherable to the everyday airline traveler.
As this bill is debated in the coming months, the escalating seat reservation fees that some airlines are applying to any reserved seat selected for advanced reservation will probably the next airline fee to come under closer scrutiny.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
