The great baggage rip-off

bagand96

Of course airline baggage charges are not proportionate to what in real terms it costs the airline. It is part of making up the overall profit.

Airline and ground handling agency contracts are complicated and vary vastly from airline to airline and airport to airport. At the end of the day the airlines have to pay the handling agent and that cost has to be met somewhere along the line - if it be baggage charges then so be it. But the deal one airline strike with a handling agent at one airport will be massively different to those of another airline and/or airport. Some airlines sign a nationwide contract, some battle each contract to get the best price at each airport. Some will just pay a flat fee per aircraft turnaround, some will pay per passenger. Years ago it was just a flat fee system, but as the low cost airlines have driven down costs, the cost of ground handling has had to go south as well. Many handling agents are now offering much more flexible and tailored services.

Another reason for it is to discourage people from turning up with everything including the proverbial kitchen sink. If every one of your passengers turned up with their maximum allowance (if it was free) you would rarely meet your 20-30 minute turnarounds. So if you can discourage people from bringing too much, and make people bring less, you can meet turnaround times, get more usage out of aircraft which in turn can mean lower costs which helps offset the very cheap fares you're offering.

When it comes down to it, selling return flights for £50 , or even £100 will barely start to cover costs. All these add ons make up for that shortfall. Remember, the cost of flying today is cheaper than its ever been.

blue_haddock

Thank you Bagand96 for a sensible post. As you quite rightly say flights are the cheapest they have ever been. I don't mind whether the baggage cost is included or extra - we are still getting fantastic deals.

Tomorrow me and my brother are off for a few days in ireland - the total cost for us both was 4p return. I'd rather pay ryanair a few quid each time for the privelege of carrying my bags and be able to get bargains like these than pay a much higher all inclusive price to someone like BA or aer lingus.

alanrowell

alanrowell's first law - if someone claims that something is a rip-off then it isn't.

chuckley

even if it was free, ud still complain about ryan air and easy jet, e.g.