You might want to check this story:
"Hate airline baggage fees? Needham man is to blame; His idea buoyed beleaguered carriers, and incensed everyone else" by Katie Johnston | Globe Staff, April 28, 2013
John Thomas is a mild-mannered airline consultant, a cheerful native of Australia with a ready laugh who is known for throwing great parties at his Needham home. So why do his friends want to stick pins into a voodoo doll of his likeness?
Thomas, 54, is the guy who brought baggage fees to airlines in North America. He first advised carriers to start charging for checked luggage in 2008, setting off a chain reaction that saw one airline after another adopt the charge and opening the floodgates for a steady stream of other new fees.
Passengers fumed, but analysts say it was necessary at a time when jet fuel prices were soaring and the industry seemed near collapse.
Without the infusion of cash provided by baggage fees — which now generate more than $3 billion a year — some airlines might have shut down, said Jay Sorensen, president of the Wisconsin-based travel consulting firm IdeaWorksCompany.
“It was a tsunami of money,” Sorensen said. “I would credit bag fees with saving the industry that year.”
Bag fees don’t affect Thomas, though. He either flies on his seven-passenger Cessna Citation jet, which he keeps at Norwood Memorial Airport, or stuffs his belongings in a carry-on — even on a three-week trip to China.
His response to the irony? “Oops.” And then a sheepish giggle....
Yeah, ha-ha-ha! That's the kind of thing that makes someone want to deliver a punch in the face.
Thomas works from the Boston office of LEK Consulting, a London-based global management consulting firm, where his main job is helping airlines make money, something the industry has needed desperately in recent years.
Carriers were still recovering from losses after the 9/11 terrorist attacks when oil prices started to climb in 2007, eventually hitting record highs. Meanwhile, online travel sites made it easier for customers to compare prices and more difficult for airlines to raise fares to cover rising costs.
What happened to the $15 billion in bailouts they got after 9/11? Which CEO pockets did that end up in?
“They were looking at certain economic death,” Thomas said....
Yeah, right, people won't fly anymore. If that were true they would have stopped allowing all the intrusive and cancer-causing violations of civil rights. They haven't.
So, when a US airline came to him for ways to generate new revenue streams, Thomas had a solution in hand. He and his team did a route-by-route analysis for the carrier, which Thomas also can’t identify, determining that revenue gained from bag fees would more than offset any loss of passengers if competitors didn’t do the same.
Still, airline executives were nervous. If the airline lost more customers than he projected, Thomas’s reputation, and LEK’s, would have suffered. “It’s my head on the line,” he said.
On Feb. 4, 2008, United Airlines announced it would charge $25 for the second checked bag. Within two weeks, US Airways said it would do the same, and almost all the major carriers except Southwest Airlines followed, according to LEK.
In May that year, a week before United was to implement the fee, American Airlines said it would charge for the first bag, too. The other carriers that were planning to make passengers pay for the second bag said they would also start charging for the first, with the exception of JetBlue Airways.
“We were ecstatic,” Thomas said. The success ushered in the era of airlines imposing fees for services once included in ticket prices, such as sitting in a window seat, while adding new charges for perks such as extra legroom and early boarding.
It's called extortion.
“Baggage fees were the first horse out of the barn and the door was never closed,” said Sorensen, of IdeaWorks.
Do you see why I'm against the introduction of more fees and taxes?
The revenue stream that resulted has been credited with helping to stabilize the industry. From 2008 to 2011, non-ticket revenue reported by airlines around the world more than doubled, to $22.6 billion from $10.3 billion, according to IdeaWorks.
Passengers have grown resigned to these fees. Ken Lynch of Mont Vernon, N.H., usually travels with a carry-on and pays to board early so he doesn’t have to battle for space in overhead bins. The 6-foot-5 technology and banking consultant, who flies once or twice a month, also shells out for extra legroom.
“Everybody hates the airlines,” he said. “It’s the modern-day version of the stagecoach: It’s uncomfortable, cramped, and the air stinks. The only thing missing is the smell of horse manure.”
Thomas knows he’s not going to win any popularity contests among fliers. His wife, Paula Vanderhorst, gets a kick out of telling flight attendants that they have him to blame for all the passengers jamming carry-ons into overhead bins.
Well, that bitch isn't going to win any either. What an arrogant and insulting....
One friend, Jayne Garlick, who estimates her family has paid thousands in bag fees, threatened to stick a Thomas voodoo doll “somewhere unpleasant.” A former British Airways flight attendant whose children went to school with Thomas’s, Garlick said she considers him a “lovely chap.” But she is unhappy about bag fees.
“It was a moment of madness,” she said.
Don't you mean madne$$?
But that won’t stop Thomas from dreaming up new ways for airlines to make money. He advised a British carrier to charge passengers $100 to guarantee that the seat next to them would be empty and recommended that another airline offer a service that picks up passengers’ bags at home and delivers them to their destination.
It would be empty anyway, but what the hell?
The next revenue frontier: Wi-Fi. If airlines begin offering free Wi-Fi to passengers, they could offset costs, and then some, by charging restaurants, rental cars, and tourist attractions to aim promotions at this captive audience, Thomas said.
And with the recent loosening of online gambling regulations, passengers might someday be able to gamble with their frequent flier miles.
“Think of it as being in the mall with nothing to do, and there’s a blizzard outside, so you’re stuck in the mall for five hours.” he said. “That’s probably worth another $5 billion.”
Now the airplane ride is like going to the mall? I imagine it soon will be with all the increased tyranny in response to the Boston backpack bombs.
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Another Sunday Special:
"Speed through the airport like a celebrity" by Scott Mayerowitz | Associated Press, April 14, 2013
NEW YORK — Cutting lines at airports used to be only for the rich, famous, or very frequent fliers. But then airlines started granting fast-track access to anybody with the right credit card or who was willing to shell out a few extra dollars.
Now, with the masses clogging up special security and boarding lanes, true VIPs are saying: Get me away from this chaos. And the airlines are listening.
I think most Americans know business and government only serve the elite.
Just as they’ve made first class more enjoyable with new seats, tastier meals, and bigger TVs, airlines are focusing on easing the misery of airports for their highest-paying customers and giving them a truly elite experience.
Yup, it's two societies now.
At a growing number of airports, special agents will meet these celebrities, high-powered executives, and wealthy vacationers at the curb and will privately escort them from check-in to security to boarding.
American Airlines built a private check-in lobby in Los Angeles for VIPs who are greeted by name, given preprinted boarding passes, and then whisked by elevator to the front of the security line.
Once past security, the VIPs aren’t left to fend for themselves in crowded terminals. Instead, Delta’s new Sky Club in New York includes a hidden lounge-within-a-lounge with sweeping views of the Manhattan skyline. And in Atlanta, Delta will drive some VIPs from one plane to another in a Porsche. There is no need to ever enter the terminal.
The special treatment continues at boarding.
Most passengers jockey to get on the plane first to find a spot for their carry-on luggage. But celebrities like to be the last in their seats to avoid passengers asking for autographs as they trek through first class on the way to rear of the plane. Airlines make sure that last-second boarding is as smooth as possible.
‘‘We even do things like reserve overhead bin space for them,’’ says Ranjan Goswami, who oversees West Coast sales for Delta Air Lines.
American is going one step further and reconfiguring jet bridges to allow boarding through the second door on some planes. That means coach passengers will no longer traipse through first class on its transcontinental flights.
Yup, the rabble will no longer be "traipsing" through first class and bother all the important and beautiful people. This place is becoming more of a third-world shit hole every day.
In many ways, airlines are adding these extreme VIP services to fix a problem they have created themselves. Frequent fliers find dedicated security lines packed as airlines try to squeeze out every dollar from passengers. Boarding has become a free-for-all as passengers fight for overhead bin space, a situation created when many airlines started charging $25 extra to check suitcases.
There is a lot of money on the line. At big airlines such as American, 70 percent of the revenue comes from 20 percent of its customers.
Translation: Air travel is basically elite travel.
A one-way transcontinental business class seat purchased at the last minute can cost more than $2,500. By contrast, a non-refundable ticket in coach booked at least 21 days in advance might cost $159....
But it’s not just for celebrities. Anybody can pay for the service and a chance to feel like a star — at least for a few hours.
Honestly, I'm tired of the insults from "reporters" who have internalized the the values and habits of their paymasters.
American’s program — called Five Star Service — costs between $125 and $275 for the first passenger, depending on the airport. Each additional adult is $75; children are $50 extra. Delta’s VIP Select, only available through the airline’s corporate sales department or travel agents in the know, costs $125 for the first person, $75 for the second and $125 for each additional person, regardless of age. These fees are in addition to the price of a ticket.
But that doesn’t mean the masses take advantage of such services; many travelers balk at paying $25 to check a suitcase.
United Airlines has a program but limits it to VIPs. Spokesman Rahsaan Johnson refused to detail it, saying ‘‘the individuals who enjoy the service we are providing understand what it is.’’
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Related: Slow Saturday Special: FAA Fraud Fixed
Yeah, your seats are getting more cramped as the elite stretch their legs.
Also see: Obama calls congressional flight delay fix a ‘Band-Aid’
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"Complaints surge as airline passengers feel squeeze" by Joan Lowy | Associated Press, April 08, 2013
WASHINGTON — Airline passengers are getting grumpier, and it’s little wonder.
Airlines keep shrinking the size of seats to stuff more people onto planes, those empty middle seats that once provided a little more room are now occupied, and more people with tickets are being turned away because flights are overbooked....
And they now charge a larger person for extra room.
‘‘The way airlines have taken 130-seat airplanes and expanded them to 150 seats to squeeze out more revenue I think is finally catching up with them,’’ said Dean Headley, a business professor at Wichita State University who has co-written the annual report for 23 years.
Nope.
‘‘People are saying, ‘Look, I don’t fit here. Do something about this.’ At some point airlines can’t keep shrinking seats to put more people into the same tube,’’ he said.
The industry is even looking at ways to make today’s smaller-than-a-broom closet toilets more compact in the hope of squeezing a few more seats onto planes.
Why not put an individual toilet right in the seat -- for a fee, of course?
‘‘I can’t imagine the uproar that making toilets smaller might generate,’’ Headley said, especially given that passengers increasingly weigh more than they use to. Nevertheless, ‘‘will it keep them from flying? I doubt it would.’’
In recent years, some airlines have shifted to larger planes that can carry more people, but that hasn’t been enough to make up for an overall reduction in flights....
Then why is the FAA getting more and more money?
It used to be in cases of overbookings that airlines usually could find a passenger who would volunteer to give up a seat in exchange for cash, a free ticket, or some other compensation with the expectation of catching another flight later that day or the next morning. Not anymore....
At the same time complaints were increasing, airlines were doing a better job of getting passengers to their destinations on time....
That last bit is a lie, but who is counting?
The industry’s shift to charging for fees for extra bags, or sometimes charging fees for any bags, has significantly reduced the rate of lost or mishandled bags. Passengers are checking fewer bags than before, and carrying more bags onto planes when permitted....
But that's a GOOD THING -- as the lady will remind you (Blog editor smiles sheepish grin).
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