I was recently interviewed by The New York Times over my pet peeve regarding travel fees imposed by airlines and hotels. Now, Spirit Airlines has announced that it will charge a $100 fee for a carry-on bag. Conversely, other airlines are increasing their charges for checked bags which has generated billions in new revenues. There will be a $70 checked bag fee on international flights at American for some flight, for example. At one time, airlines blamed the new fees on fuel costs but that rationale fell away as the fees continued regardless of fuel costs.
Notably, we discussed these fees in my torts class in discussing the case of Andrews v. United Airlines dealing with the question of negligence by airlines in the design of overhead bins. This case occurred before airlines started charging fees that resulted in many people taking cases on the plane — resulting in delay and an increase in the number of injuries.
As I mentioned to the Times, the strategy is clearly to drop the expectations of the new generation of travelers who do not remember that bags were once considered a basic element of traveling and covered in a ticket. Allegiant Air announced this month that it will be charging up to $35 for bags. Delta will charge $75 for checking a second bag.
JetBlue, which recently shrank legroom in a disappointing reversal, will also start to impose a fee of $40 for a second bag though to it credit the airline does not charge for the first bag.
The fleecing of travelers is now out of control. With the bag fees, boarding has become a contest that makes the Roman games look tame in comparison, People crush each others bags and coats in trying to wedge huge bags into bins. Passengers who check their bags, like me, are now told that they must not use the bins for their jackets or computer bags to make room for bigger bags. You are asked to stuff these bags at your feet while the airlines are continuing to reduce the leg room in standard seats. This leaves you virtually entrapped with no ability to open a lap top or change position if you are average height for a male. After denying you any room, the airline then offers to sell you different seats with varying degrees of space: what I called the “misery index” menu now common on U.S. domestic airlines.
I am only waiting for the baggage fee charges to become uniform so that you are charged on the same airline for carrying one a bag or for checking a bag. The message is clear: put on multiple layers of clothes and go without luggage.
Source: USA Today
It’s a pity you don’t have a donate button! I’d certainly donate to this superb blog!
I guess for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account.
I look forward to new updates and will share this website with
my Facebook group. Talk soon!
Mitt Romney sez: FEMA funding is immoral.
Be sure to let those along the eastern third of the US know they would be better off depending on private enterprise and state funding for emergency relief. You know, private enterprise like the vultures descending on hard hit areas with supplies like ice, potable water and generators at exorbitant prices. We would all be so much more moral and well off under that government model. I always wanted to pay twenty dollars for a bag of ice or gallon of water rather than depend on “socialism.”
Mike,
Redstate must be getting desperate for hits on their counter if they have sunk to trolling popular sites with spam. Anonymous has just given them something else to cause an Excedrin headache.
It is tomorrow that they will have a meeting.What’s wrong with you? I went there three days ago.She likes Mike a lot, but she doesn’t want to get married so early.Jean is a blue-eyed girl.I’m certain he’ll go to see the film, because he’s bought a ticket.I’m certain he’ll go to see the film, because he’s bought a ticket.This is only the first half.The road divides here.I had to sit up all night writing the report.
burberry http://www.redstate.com/burberry2012/?p=7&preview=true
So do you think that burberry is trolling to increase hits on his vile redstate blog. Don’t hit the link to help him out. How do I know its vile? It’s redstate.
Blouise 1, October 2, 2012 at 7:44 pm
The pressure on Reagan was from foreign nations who did not want the strike to spread to their controllers. Reagan caved to that foreign pressure and the deal that had been ready to go forward got tossed. It was foreign intervention and nobody will talk about it.
================================
The President who won’t deal with terrorists? Remember Beirut?
=======
The blasts led to the withdrawal of the international peacekeeping force from Lebanon, where they had been stationed since the withdrawal of the Palestine Liberation Organization following the Israeli 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombing
bettykath 1, October 2, 2012 at 7:34 pm
The big mistake with the PATCO strike is that ALPA didn’t refuse to fly.
==========
John J. O’Donnell of the AFL-CIO-affiliated Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) provided public support to the Reagan administration. He repeatedly pledged that air travel continued to be as safe after the strike as before, a position contradicted by a safety commission of his own organization that found “a definite safety hazard” created by unqualified controllers. In August O’Donnell negotiated wage cuts of 10 percent for Pan Am pilots and a 30 percent increase in flying time per month for United pilots.
========
Sounds like the pilots won. Are the pilots better off now than they were when Reagan was in office?
Blouise,
Catching the train from our town at 3AM from a crappy station difficult to find, with no appreciable parking, is no treat. No TSA groping or stealing sweetens the deal a little, though.
MikeS,
I rang UD, Foreign Office, and they say they have no studies which show the public’s position vv Israel, etc. They point, with modest pride, to the EU Council’s position paper taken when Sweden was Presiding Chairman (for 6 months). That is ratified and is the EU and the Swedish official positions.
The Israeli embassy info officer disclaimed any knowledge of studies, and that they had never sponsored such studies, and of course would not comment on their own State Dept.’s need of info on Sweden, etc. No official information to Jewish travelers, or others on the Swedish situation. She expressed distaste, in principle, for newspapers as a source, mentioning a recent article based on some international source. She will send a link to me. Her personal concern is the repeated attacks which young muslime in Malmö have done against synagogues. Malmö and parts of Skåne are hotbeds of extreme folk based conservatism. Personally, she as a Jew has never felt unease here in Sweden.
To my inquiry if there was any basis for regarding Sweden as a bastion of fascism and being anti-Israel, she replied like a lawyer: “Ask them to provide proof of their claims”!
Smart lady. I also asked if I could be a goy visitor and observe a synagogue Sabbath ceremony.
She just said that there were security precautions at the entrance.
The mosque does not have security, at least not visible, for obvious reasons, ie no jewish attacks expected. Remains to see if there are any Shia-sunni strifes, but that is another question.
Wow, did I get a rude awakening from my morning helper, a charming but not so beautiful blond. She, btw, is going to start her sociologist studies in January, 3 years and 6 months OJT, Now she’s doing “rhetoric and argumentation”. Just what every woman should learn. Not because they are dumb, but because men are.
Anyway, she informed me that the security routines for flying are apparently the same as in the USA.
Take off shoes, heavy sweaters. coats, hat, gloves, pants—No no. Open your bag, take laptop out of case, open it, etc. And it is all your fault over there. Nasty mess. Al qaida’s revenge, speaking of Montezuma.
MikeS,
As for the irony of eating out of trash cans,to my knowledge in Mandelstams USSR there were none. If you could get it past your nose, then you ate it. And if you had a cat then it would eat the rest. What incredible hardships they had in exile are vivfdly portrayed, but oddly anti-semitism was not one of them, just then. A temporarily quiet period. Not to say that it had not effected their careers. A tangent.
You give a complex picture. Generally speaking, for myself that is, I don’t look for groups to blame for the world’s problems. Not even present day Germans, nor Russians, etc. And certainly not jews. I have sung their praises as culture bearers of compassion and inspiration of all kinds. Today’s jews who fight our fight for civil riehts are good examples
The sky of achievement is ablaze with jewish stars, and that may be poetic, but a good metaphor I feel.
But it is a mixed bag, we know that. But far less perhaps of the corporate raiding that was pioneered by a jew. But what does that prove other than that he was a good lawyer who could not get a job in the white shoe firms on Wall St. and found and developed a nisch. And that was then, who know nows. Romny seems to have been a star, if he can be called a star anything, I diverge. My summery, take the facts when you can get them, and ignore the rest–because it is propaganda from somebody. Nothing else is paid for but that.
I did not grow up with any effing prejudices except against assumed ignorance and christian evangelism bsed on two church session, and did not acquire any since then.
Faux pas is my middle name however. And I will cross the lines as they are so many and I am blind to them.
Just so, I am deaf to anti-Israel tones here in Sweden, which you named. I don’t go in the social circles where they might exist, ie Swedish overclass.
The common nam is not even interested in the subject, if I am any judge. I don’t do polls, Maybe I could call the State Dept here and ask. Or the Israeli embassy.
For myself, I hated the white phosphorous which I saw falling. It seemed so American. And the policies behind, but not any of the people, although “settlers” evicting east Jerusalem Arabs was felt to be another blemish on their record, one of many such scenes. But on a scale of one to ten it rates 0.5 to me. And in comparison to evictions for economic reasons in America, it is at least passionately motivatied and not coldly. What Bibi and buddies is another qeustion. He has to be quite cold in such matters. I see he got his Obama meeting judging by the headlines. tangent
Thanks for your kind words. I always look forward to the ones on other subjects too.
Why doesn’t Spirit just charge based on 2 carryon bags and give special $75 discount for no carryon bag?
The Strike That Busted Unions
By JOSEPH A. McCARTIN
Published: August 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/03/opinion/reagan-vs-patco-the-strike-that-busted-unions.html?_r=0
Excerpt:
THIRTY years ago today, when he threatened to fire nearly 13,000 air traffic controllers unless they called off an illegal strike, Ronald Reagan not only transformed his presidency, but also shaped the world of the modern workplace.
More than any other labor dispute of the past three decades, Reagan’s confrontation with the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or Patco, undermined the bargaining power of American workers and their labor unions. It also polarized our politics in ways that prevent us from addressing the root of our economic troubles: the continuing stagnation of incomes despite rising corporate profits and worker productivity.
By firing those who refused to heed his warning, and breaking their union, Reagan took a considerable risk. Even his closest advisers worried that a major air disaster might result from the wholesale replacement of striking controllers. Air travel was significantly curtailed, and it took several years and billions of dollars (much more than Patco had demanded) to return the system to its pre-strike levels.
But the risk paid off for Reagan in the short run. He showed federal workers and Soviet leaders alike how tough he could be. Although there were 39 illegal work stoppages against the federal government between 1962 and 1981, no significant federal job actions followed Reagan’s firing of the Patco strikers. His forceful handling of the walkout, meanwhile, impressed the Soviets, strengthening his hand in the talks he later pursued with Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
Yet three decades later, with the economy shrinking or stagnant for nearly four years now and Reagan’s party moving even further to the right than where he stood, the long-term costs of his destruction of the union loom ever larger. It is clear now that the fallout from the strike has hurt workers and distorted our politics in ways Reagan himself did not advocate.
Although a conservative, Reagan often argued that private sector workers’ rights to organize were fundamental in a democracy. He not only made this point when supporting Lech Walesa’s anti-Communist Solidarity movement in Poland; he also boasted of being the first president of the Screen Actors Guild to lead that union in a strike. Over time, however, his crushing of the controllers’ walkout — which he believed was justified because federal workers were not allowed under the law to strike — has helped undermine the private-sector rights he once defended.
Workers in the private sector had used the strike as a tool of leverage in labor-management conflicts between World War II and 1981, repeatedly withholding their work to win fairer treatment from recalcitrant employers. But after Patco, that weapon was largely lost. Reagan’s unprecedented dismissal of skilled strikers encouraged private employers to do likewise. Phelps Dodge and International Paper were among the companies that imitated Reagan by replacing strikers rather than negotiating with them. Many other employers followed suit.
By 2010, the number of workers participating in walkouts was less than 2 percent of what it had been when Reagan led the actors’ strike in 1952. Lacking the leverage that strikes once provided, unions have been unable to pressure employers to increase wages as productivity rises. Inequality has ballooned to a level not seen since Reagan’s boyhood in the 1920s.
bettykath,
True. I never understood that. Must have been something going on behind the scenes that I never understood. Perhaps Capt. Erb will weigh in and shed some light on that. I am keenly aware of the fact the souls in the front seat of an airplane are the first to the scene of the accident. Aviators have a vested interest in safety, and we were not safer with scabs running the air traffic control system.
bettykath,
Sometimes conspiracies are real.
bettykath,
I thought that too until I talked to a man whose close relative was President of the Air Traffic union.
The pressure on Reagan was from foreign nations who did not want the strike to spread to their controllers. Reagan caved to that foreign pressure and the deal that had been ready to go forward got tossed. It was foreign intervention and nobody will talk about it.
I missed the whole Jew thing on this thread and when I mean the “whole” Jew thing that includes the start-up about “properly identified Jews.” But to illuminate whoever is interested:
My grandfather came over in the early 1900s because he was starting to get in trouble with the Bolsheviks and his parents were terrified. The family was a typical poor stetl family from the countryside around Kiev. Then in the US a few years he began to unionize and risk his life over HERE, so the guys back “home” were told to find a wife for him, send her over immediately, and she’d marry him right off the boat so “a sensible girl could control him” and prevent his untimely death. Somehow they managed to prevent his untimely death and he continued to unionize. He was a dairy factory worker and called himself a “cheese cutter” so when I saw that Monty Python movie with the line “Blessed are the cheese-makers” I thought of Grampa. When he retired from the factory he went to work as a part-time janitor at the hospital. My grandparents rented out their bedrooms to boarders and lived frugally and helped my mom buy us a piano.
They had no diamonds in their clothes. My mom did get a diamond ring from my dad when she got married. After her death, when I inherited it, I got it appraised. $125 — that was in 1978. That doesn’t mean there weren’t rich Jews in Europe, of course, nor is there any real shame in saying that there were. I had a Catholic friend, born in Germany before the war and then brought up in Chicago, who had one out of only 14 original woodcuts by a famous artist, and her mother (German who lived here but never was naturalized) had smuggled it out of Germany. Value is probably very very high; it was originally hanging, obviously, in the living room of some Jews in Frankfurt who “left it behind.” The Monseigneur helped my friend’s mom get it out of Germany. Many other pieces she brought out in similar fashion ended up in museums over here. Larger than diamonds.
The big mistake with the PATCO strike is that ALPA didn’t refuse to fly.