[schaero]

Here's a suggestion to save all of our financially strapped airlines. I suggest that they all raise the price of soft drinks and water to $10 each, the price of movies to $25, the price of food to $50 per tray, the price of having a ticket agent wait on them to $100 and the price of their first piece of luggage to $200 (which by the way only encourages people to carry gargantuan bags onto the planes and try to cram them all into the overhead bins; pretty smart, huh?) They could also put coin slots on the display monitors to check for departures and arrivals, say $1.00 each viewing. And maybe another fee to use one of the chairs at the terminal gate, say $5.00 per hour? Then, once they have jacked up the prices of all the incidentals, the ticket itself could actually be given to the customer free of charge!!! Seems like an idea that might appeal to the airline marketing wizards, doesn't it??? Feel free to pass these suggestions along to all the folks who are so rapidly ruining what little positive image they have left.

I can hardly wait for all of the airlines to begin asking the government to bail them out because business has dropped off so much, never realizing that they actually ruined their own companies by “nickel and diming” their customers to death.

Now seriously, how did it not occur to the airlines to simply raise the price of each ticket $50 or $100 bucks, with an explanation that the increase was for additional fuel charges (which we all could have easily understood and related to), leaving soft drinks, water, baggage and movies free??? Of course, that wouldn’t have contributed to the airlines lousy image, which they seem so skillful at creating.

[Silent Bob]

I'm sorry but isn't this considered an act of flooding? we really don't need one of these on every page sir, just one suffice i think.

[airhead]

Fortunately, things are still run by a free market. It is impossible for an airline to guess what the price of fuel will be in the next few months while they are quoting ticket prices today. Nobody likes to be nickel and dimed but that is what is in the future as far as public air travel. If passengers really were upset about paying the $15 for bag number one, they would fly another carrier. However, more and more carriers are following AA's example probably because it is working. By the way, AA was one of the few airlines that did not receive federal aid. Why should a passenger with no bags pay the same as another passenger who has over 70 pounds of luggage? All that baggage adds up when you multiply the number of passengers taking advantage of the system when it was the old way of cheap fuel. This also minimizes the possibility of denied boarding since load factors are a little lighter.

[exexpat]

Sheeesh! You're giving them ideas! Coin operated toilets... $5 dollars for anything that was considered standard before. Pretty soon they'll have Predator Drone ex-military enlisted guys piloting your airplane from somewhere in Kansas anywhere in the World.

They are nickle and diming themselves to extinction. There is only so much crap we'll take from them before they go under the bus. Airlines fail the next time - no mercy *******. No one will miss your $5 this and that.