Posted by Marshall Jackson on February 14, 2010 under Ancillary Revenue, Commentary / General Info, JetBlue, Southwest Airlines | 
I’m rarely in unanimous agreement with Chris Elliott’s take on the airlines. That said, I think his piece on the airlines’ hunt for ancillary revenue is close to spot on. Except at the end where the word “re-regulation” appears, which is a bandwagon I’m never gonna board.
I don’t mind paying extra for something that truly is a value-added service. Like Elliott, I think that many of the new buy on board food options and internet meet this threshold. I’m also a fan of Southwest’s Early Bird Checkin product. Heck, I don’t even mind the pillow/blanket packages, and certainly not the confirmed flight change fee American recently rolled out.
On the other hand, I know you’ve heard me preach on the sin of paying a fee for the first checked bag. I’m sorry, but one bag is an inherent part of travel and I continue to believe that JetBlue’s policy of including one checked bag as part of the fare is the right one for not just JetBlue, but the entire airline industry. The other airlines, except Southwest (2 bags for free), obviously do not agree with my opinion. And don’t even get me started on charging a fee to purchase a ticket from a person, which I maintain is the silliest idea in the history of mankind. Even worse than the first checked bag fee.
In summary, I remain unopposed to the concept of unbundling in principal as long as the service that is now being “charged for” can legitimately be considered a “plus up” to the travel experience. Unfortunately, far too many airlines have fallen all over themselves in charging for any and everything they can think of in an attempt to return to profitability. And for those airlines, I have a question: How’s that workin’ out for ya’?
Posted by Marshall Jackson on January 19, 2010 under American Airlines, Ancillary Revenue |
Sorry for being late to post this, but I’ve been inundated with work from that pesky day job. Not unexpectedly, American Airlines has announced that it will begin charging $25 dollars for the first checked bag starting February 1. Many thanks to reader Jim for sending this link. I apologize for being slow to post it.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on January 16, 2010 under Ancillary Revenue, US Airways |
US Airways was actually the first airline to charge $25 dollars for checking one bag, but they offered a $5 dollar discount if you prepaid online. No more. They’ve joined the rest of the big legacy airlines (except American which still charges $20 dollars) in charging $25 dollars for the first bag, with only a $2 dollar discount for prepaying online. United does not offer a discount for prepaying online. We can only assume that American will join the other airlines in short order. $60 dollars each way if you check 2 bags. Wow!
Southwest should have some fun with this one.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on January 14, 2010 under Ancillary Revenue, United Airlines |
I’m late to post this, so I know it’s already out there. United has joined the $25 dollar party on first bags. The rest will surely follow soon. One has to wonder where it will stop? There must be a top end of what customers are willing to tolerate paying for the privilege of checking one lousy bag.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on January 12, 2010 under Ancillary Revenue, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines |
Continental jumped on the $25 dollar party wagon today. Now they join Delta (and USAirways) at the top of the baggage fee pile – $25 bucks for one bag. Both Delta and Continental will knock $2 dollars off the price if you pay online. USAirways is currently discounting the price by a whopping $5 dollars if you pay online. Expect that to last about six more seconds if the rest of the industry continues to jump on this. And I can’t imagine a scenario where they don’t. If they all match, and we all continue to pay, where do you think the next stop on the fee meter is? $30 dollars? Why not $50? Pretty soon the fee for your bags will be more than your fare. Keep in mind that the $25 dollar price point I’m harping on is just for the first bag. Have the unmitigated gall to check a second bag, and you’ll pay $35 dollars for that one.
I can’t emphasize enough that I have no problem with “unbundling” in principle, and that includes baggage fees. However, I think the industry runs the risk of pricing this particular service somewhere well north of what customers are willing to tolerate without some kind of backlash. Will the airlines figure that out before customers have started to vote with their feet? Time will tell.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on January 11, 2010 under Ancillary Revenue, Southwest Airlines, Travel Products, Travel Tips |
I don’t fly Southwest Airlines very often. By that, I mean that I fly them 2 to 3 times a year, sometimes a little more. It’s not that I dislike Southwest, I certainly don’t, it’s just that between my work (which has no contracts with Southwest) and personal travel (which I tend to use to pad my elite qualifying status) I just simply don’t have that many occasions to use Southwest. I suspect if they were ever to see fit to add Washington National (DCA) to their route map, I might fly them more often, but until then, I will likely not fly them enough to become an “A Lister.”
In any event, I did fly Southwest down to Tampa this weekend, and I thought I’d share the details with you. I don’t offer my experience as any kind of evidence of anything other than the fact that I had an uneventful and pleasant trip. I’ve had 2 Rapid Rewards tickets sitting around for sometime now, and I thought this to be an ideal opportunity to use them. I booked the flights, BWI-TPA-BWI a few months ago with a Friday, January 8 departure, and Monday, January 11 return. Standard Rapid Rewards inventory was widely available when I booked, and I had no problem securing the seats.
About a week before the trip, I received an email reminder from Southwest of my upcoming trip. That reminder included a bit of advertising, including an offer to try Southwest’s new Early Bird Check-in (EBCI). If you buy EBCI, Southwest will basically check you in at 36 hours prior to departure, giving you early access to a better boarding group number in theory. I was curious to try the product, so I bit. The cost is $10 dollars each way, so a total of $20 dollars for the flight down to Tampa for Mrs MJonTravel and I. I only bought EBCI for the flight to Tampa since I just wanted to try it out. More on how it worked out in a minute.
As luck would have it, Mrs MJonTravel had a work conflict come up that caused us to need to return on Sunday instead of Monday. I thought to myself “fabulous…I’m sure there won’t be any Rapid Rewards seats left.” I grudgingly went to Southwest.com, and much to my surprise, all but one return flight on Sunday had Rapid Rewards availability, standard availability at that! Southwest.com is just one area where Southwest really sets itself apart. I changed our return reservations myself online, and I promise you, it took less than 5 minutes! It was so easy. Kudos to Southwest for making it that way. No change fees, add collects, or drama. Yay! Better yet, had these have been purchased tickets, I could’ve changed our return with no $150 dollar change fees, only paying the difference in fare if there were any.
After changing our flights, it was time to print our boarding passes. There was no need to rush to the nearest computer at exactly the 24 hour mark since I had purchased EBCI. Southwest had done the work for me. I’m sure glad they did, because even with EBCI, our boarding positions were A43 and A44. Better than C, but not that great, especially considering that we got almost the same boarding positions on the return without paying extra for it. In their defense, it was a busy Friday night, and our flight was packed. Furthermore, EBCI is first come, first served and I didn’t buy it until a few days before our flight. But it still makes me wonder if Southwest might not need to consider a limit on the number of EBCI slots made available? I think that’s something they may need to think about.
I won’t bother with reviews of my flights. They were fine. The inflight staff to/from Tampa were polite, pleasant and friendly, just like you’d expect from Southwest. We did not check luggage for this trip, and since we had checked in online, we did not interact with ticket counter staff.
Rapid Rewards – Southwest’s Frequent Flyer Program
Rapid Rewards is a fairly straightforward frequent flyer program. If you are a purely domestic flyer, don’t care about using miles to travel internationally, and live near an airport that Southwest serves, Rapid Rewards is an extremely attractive program. Fly 8 roundtrips (1 Rapid Rewards credit per flight), you get a Standard Award (16 credits) deposited into your account, no muss, no fuss. Add the Rapid Rewards Visa to your wallet, use any of their partners, and add credits to you account at a “Rapid” clip.
I was mildly amused when waiting for our flight to Tampa on Friday. A passenger whom I overheard saying she flew the same flight almost weekly was blathering about how she could never use Rapid Rewards tickets anymore unless she used a Freedom Award (2 standard awards for last seat availability). I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I was traveling on a standard award (and so was Mrs MJonTravel). 
So, those tickets are available. In fact, a bit of poking around the Southwest website with some test bookings seems to indicate to me that award availability is pretty good. I’m sure it varies from market to market and time of year, but I didn’t see anything that indicates to me that there is any kind of real difficulty in finding standard award seats on Southwest if you’re the least bit flexible.
The Bottom Line
Southwest works for a great many people, including myself. Southwest’s great people, simple product, and reasonable policies for changing your travel plans cannot be beat. While American and AAdvantage will continue to be my primary airline and frequent flyer program for the foreseeable future, Southwest is a compelling option for many, especially if extensive international travel isn’t on your agenda.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on January 9, 2010 under Ancillary Revenue, Commentary / General Info, Random Musings, Southwest Airlines |
We’re here. Mrs MJonTravel and I flew down Friday afternoon on a Southwest nonstop from BWI. Our flight was a little late leaving and then we had 135 knot headwinds all the way. Otherwise, things were fine. Great actually. Southwest’s inflight crew was super, passing down the aisles for 2 official rounds of beverages and requests for 3 rounds were cheerfully delivered to whomever asked.
I’ll post a complete trip report next week, with thoughts on Southwest’s new Early Bird Check-in (which I used on the way down), Rapid Rewards (traveling on RR tickets this trip), and Southwest in general (which doesn’t charge $25 dollars to check one bag like Delta now does).
If you haven’t noticed, the $25 dollar price-point for checking one bag is on my radar. I’ve been soft on bag fees. Why? I don’t have a huge issue with “unbundling” in general, and baggage fees in particular…to a point. Not to mention, as an elite member of 2 mileage programs, I don’t pay baggage fees anyway. I’ve posted previously that I think the “sweet spot” for bag fees is JetBlue’s policy of allowing the first checked bag free of charge. Shockingly, other airlines have not caught on to my obvious airline industry genius and continue to pile on. Apparently because travelers are either buying into this by paying the fees with joy or annoying the rest of us when they try to sneak all of their crap on the airplane. Sooner or later, the airlines are going to discover the top end of what travelers are willing to tolerate in regards to bag fees. Only time will tell if travelers stop flying them before they figure it out.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on January 8, 2010 under Ancillary Revenue, Delta Air Lines |
Mark my words, we are getting close to the breaking point on baggage fees. Delta has raised the price of checking just one bag to $25 big ones. You get a whopping $2 dollar discount if you pay online. Here’s the link to Delta.com. I can only hope that someone says enough is enough, and doesn’t match. But I’m not optimistic.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on September 25, 2009 under Ancillary Revenue, Commentary / General Info |
British Airways is about to begin charging for the privilege of an advance seat assignment more than 24 hours in advance. To be clear (and fair), BA hasn’t been offering advance seat assignments for most passengers. The good news, now you can get an advance seat assignment. The bad news, you’re gonna pay for it….even if you paid thousands for a business class ticket. $90 dollars per segment, even in business class, unless you buy the walk-up business fare. Connecting in London to get to the continent? Yep, you’ll pay even more. They have plans to charge $30 dollars for advance seat assignments in economy and $75 dollars for exit row seating.
I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, I do not oppose airlines charging for items that can legitimately be considered as a “plus up” to the core product. And as I said, BA has previously not offered advance seat assignments to most passengers. But something about this one, especially the business class fee, where one can still pay thousands even if flying on a discount fare, just doesn’t pass the smell test.
The full skinny isn’t out on this new program yet, but its sure to be fodder for comedians, airline-haters, journalists, and bloggers. And as far as I’m concerned, a gigantic incentive to fly someone else, especially if you are flying beyond London. There are any number of alternatives out there, and I’d surely pick one of those over paying this fee unless I was really in love with the thought of flying BA.
Hat tip to Joe Brancatelli for scooping this info in his Friday newsletter.
Edited to Add: There’s a really good summary of these new fees over at The Global Traveler.
Edited to Add x 2: Here’s a link to BA’s website detailing who pays and who doesn’t.
Posted by Marshall Jackson on September 5, 2009 under American Airlines, Ancillary Revenue, Commentary / General Info, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines |
Mileage Promos Abound, What Does it All Mean?
American announced another Double EQM promotion, and United quickly followed suit. I don’t know if Delta and the rest will match or not, but I do wonder what this says about what kind of business traffic (or lack thereof) the airlines are seeing for this fall? Call me crazy, but economic recovery or not (and I believe the recession has ended), it’s going to be a long, cold, nasty winter for the big “legacy” airlines. But American pretty much guaranteed that I’m going to book some useless weekend trips I didn’t need just to take AAdvantage (get it?) of the double elite miles opportunities.
My American Airlines flights this past week were all packed. But my Platinum upgrades cleared early, and often. Take it for what you will, but I take it as a sign that business travel remains low.
The major airlines reported traffic this week. I only gave a fleeting look at the results, but it appears that even though traffic is off, airlines did a good job of bringing down capacity, which resulted in slightly higher load factors. However, one of the most telling numbers for me was American’s cargo traffic results, down 24.8 percent from last year. Nearly 25 percent! That’s gotta say something about the impact of the global recession on commerce as a whole even after taking the fact that American is flying less into account.
The No-Fee Airline Adds a Fee, or Did It?
Southwest announced its new EarlyBird Check-in product this week. You’ll have the opportunity to purchase EarlyBird Check-in any time from ticket purchase up to 25 hours prior to scheduled departure. Basically, for $10 dollars each way, you can move yourself up the boarding group pecking order. EarlyBird customers will be allowed to board immediately behind Business Select and Rapid Rewards A-List customers. A lot of folks will call this a fee, but I see this as an actual, honest to goodness, value added service. Frankly, I like the idea, and see it as something I would definitely use in certain circumstances. In addition to the press release link, you can learn more at Southwest’s excellent blog.
