海角大神

Recently Spirit Airlines announced that it would start charging fees for carry-on bags this summer. Spirit described the benefits of this move as follows:

鈥淚n addition to lowering fares even further, this will reduce the number of carry-on bags, which will improve inflight safety and efficiency by speeding up the boarding and deplaning process, all of which ultimately improve the overall customer experience,鈥� says Spirit鈥檚 Chief Operating Officer Ken McKenzie. 鈥淏ring less; pay less. It鈥檚 simple.鈥�

As I鈥檝e noted in previous posts, carry-on bags have become a problem on many flights. With advances in roll-aboard technology and in the face of new fees for checked luggage, more passengers are bringing baggage on board, sometimes overwhelming the capacity of the overheads. Airlines need to find a solution to that problem. Spirit鈥檚 fees are one possible answer.

I鈥檓 sure Spirit expected that some passengers and passenger advocates would object to these fees. I wonder, however, whether the airline ever suspected that it would incur the wrath of Washington?

Over the weekend, New York Senator Chuck Schumer denounced the proposed fees and sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner asking that he stop them. He鈥檚 also threatening legislation to prohibit them.

If you are like me, your first reaction should be to wonder why the Treasury Secretary鈥搑ather than, say, the Transportation Secretary鈥搃s the lucky recipient of Schumer鈥檚 letter. This being the middle of April, however, the answer shouldn鈥檛 surprise you: taxes, specifically the taxes that are levied on airline tickets (but not on some other fees associated with flying). The narrow issue is whether the carry-on fees should be subject to the tax. The broader issue is whether carry-on fees should be allowed separate from the ticket price.

Meanwhile, the Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, wasted no time in denouncing the proposed fees as well, saying:

I think it鈥檚 a bit outrageous that an airline is going to charge someone to carry on a bag and put it in the overhead. And I鈥檝e told our people to try and figure out a way to mitigate that. I think it鈥檚 ridiculous.

So watch out Spirit Airlines; your experiment in pricing scarce overhead capacity may not be welcome in Washington, even if it does lead to lower fares and faster boarding.

P.S. The tempest over the baggage fees is temporarily overshadowing a much more interesting and important issue: the transparency and intelligibility of airline fees. Secretary LaHood touches on this in the interview linked to above, as does this article over at Philly.com鈥檚 Philadelphia Business Today. Given the panoply of fees and taxes on air travel鈥搕hanks both to the government and to the airlines鈥搕here鈥檚 a real question about whether consumers understand the full costs of flying when they make their purchasing decisions. And some airlines鈥搈ost notably Spirit with its 鈥減enny鈥� and 鈥�$9鈥� fares鈥搒eem to be playing on that.

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