I saw this news from American Airlines, and I was taken aback - it's a seriously flawed policy from a branding perspective:

American Airlines said Wednesday that it would soon start charging passengers $15 to check their first bag each way, or $30 round-trip, if they are flying on a discounted fare.

Why do I say it's a branding problem? Well, consider what American Airlines is: not a discount carrier. When you fly an airline that is not a discount carrier, what are you (presumably) paying for? Some level of service. If you feel like you're getting nickle and dimed at every turn, then heck - why not fly an actual discount carrier and be done with it?

American is just confusing their brand. They would be better off, I think, to raise their fares instead, and not charge this "nickle and diming" fee. It'll just irritate people and send them off to a carrier that's already cheaper. Here's the clueless excuse from the execs there:

American Airlines executives said they had little choice but to impose such fees, given that the price of jet fuel is up more than 80 percent from a year ago.

"Our company and industry simply cannot afford to sit by hoping for industry and market conditions to improve,"€ American'€™s chief executive, Gerard J. Arpey, said Wednesday at a shareholder meeting.

So... they already charge (as most airlines do) for excess bags. I rather suspect that upping the fee for each ticket by $25 or $30 would have gone mostly unnoticed, and would have actually raised more revenue - not to mention the fact that it would have meshed with the brand better. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

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