[WorldMaker]

It's also funny how some of those "luxuries" were originally part of the base service to make everyone's experience better and by removing them, now everyone's experience is worse and costs more. Primarily: checked baggage exists as a system to get baggage out of the cramped main cabin and into simpler, dedicated storage with marginal and reasonably efficient load/unload times. By charging fees for any checked baggage (as opposed to excessive checked baggage as used to be the regime), the airlines incentivize a lot more people to try to cram every thing they can carry on into the main cabin. This results in slower loading/unloading times of people because all the carry ons fill the bins quite inefficiently; many peoples bags wind up in bins that aren't easy for them to access for them to unload; some peoples bags won't fit at all because there has never been enough room in the main cabin. The airlines now have to compensate for this by asking for volunteers to gate check bags for every flight, which is a waste of everyone's time involved, and still not as efficient for anyone involved as simply checking bags up front like airlines originally were planned to do and airports were planned to handle.

[massysett]

"Primarily: checked baggage exists as a system to get baggage out of the cramped main cabin and into simpler, dedicated storage with marginal and reasonably efficient load/unload times. By charging fees for any checked baggage (as opposed to excessive checked baggage as used to be the regime), the airlines incentivize a lot more people to try to cram every thing they can carry on into the main cabin."

So Frontier, Spirit, and now the "Basic Economy" fares charge even more for cabin bags than for checked bags. Problem solved.

One theory I heard about the checked bag fees (back when carry-on bags were no extra charge) was that the fee freed up cargo space so the airline could carry more paid air cargo, purposefully pushing baggage into the main cabin.

[WorldMaker]

«So Frontier, Spirit, and now the "Basic Economy" fares charge even more for cabin bags than for checked bags. Problem solved.»

Because no one ever travels with baggage? You can argue its "price transparency", but forcing something everyone needs to be an "add-on" is awfully shady.

«One theory I heard about the checked bag fees (back when carry-on bags were no extra charge) was that the fee freed up cargo space so the airline could carry more paid air cargo, purposefully pushing baggage into the main cabin.»

The other theory I've heard is that "unbundling" a lot of these fees and moving them to being charged at checkin and/or the gate has meant that traditional travel agents and corporate booking can't touch or negotiate them (because they aren't direct flight costs anymore). Given most corporate expense systems don't allow for reporting "add-on fees" at an airport (and it took a while for any corporate execs to catch up to a possible need to add baggage fees as an expense that could/should be reported; many companies still seem to have yet to notice), this was a good way for the airlines to increase flight costs across the board without immediately upsetting fat cat corporate clients and choice travel agents by sneakily passing the cost difference directly to employees/flyers who at that point were a "captive audience" to the new fees.

[bigtunacan]

I have heard the same about this freeing up more room for paid cargo. It seems plausible, but I would love if someone has hard evidence of this.

[SilasX]

Right, I've always thought it made more sense to charge for carry-ons than for (some moderate allowance of) checked bags, since checked bags are easier on the airline:

- less of the scarce cabin space used

- less time/complication loading the plane

- less labor to inspect (you have to apply more scrutiny to stuff a passenger can use in flight), although airless don't directly pay for that.

... but less desirable for passengers (other than not having to carry):

- have to wait for it at baggage claim

- can't access it during the flight

- have to risk the stuff being stolen or lost

Not surprisingly, every flight has the overhead bins over capacity, even though this shouldn't be possible! (I think it's because someone will have a regulation size carry-on and then add a second carry-on that takes too much space, and airline employees aren't paid enough to start confrontations by correcting passengers.)

Previous HN comment/replies: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12438683#12439465

[rtpg]

The difficulty with that has mostly been logistics. It's hard to confirm what people are bringing on as a carry-on until you're literally boarding the plane.

Try getting $50 out of someone as they're boarding a plane.

A major part of these choices involve whether they're feasible in situations with time pressure and frustrated passengers. Luckily airline staff have huge latitude to help defuse situations with angry customers.

Working for an airline is a thankless job