Spirit's $100 carry-on fee starts next month

Oxman

Well-Known Member
Spirit Airlines Inc. will begin charging passengers $100 for carry-on bags unless they pay a smaller fee before getting to the airport.

The higher fee starts Nov. 6 and applies to customers who pay the carry-on fee at the boarding gate. The airline announced in May that the $100 fee was coming.

http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=AP&date=20121001&id=15621484

Maybe this will stop peoople from trying to bring on those oversized "carry-ons" that have to be pounded into the overheads.
 
The only "good" that can come of this is keeping the idiots who try and sneak 3 Giant Rollaboards on when they arrive 5 min before the door closes and expect you to move all your stuff from the bin to accomodate their needs.....

Then again, I never flew Spirit....
 
I want to say that hopefully people will be smart enough to plan ahead and pay the lesser charge by adding it to their 'bill' when they buy their ticket. However, I realize that's expecting people to plan and be smart, and that's asking an awful lot of people sometimes.
 
People just don't seem to realize that the ticket has to cost what it has to cost to pay the bills, if it's not a $100 carry on fee, it'll be a $100 fuel surcharge added to the ticket....
 
People just don't seem to realize that the ticket has to cost what it has to cost to pay the bills, if it's not a $100 carry on fee, it'll be a $100 fuel surcharge added to the ticket....

This "ad-hoc" pricing model sounds good in theory, but it's one of those things people think they want that they really don't.
 
I would like to be able look around and find the best price without having to figure out all the hidden costs and surcharges.

And you're exactly the problem that the airlines are trying to fix with this pricing model. Passengers who care about nothing but price and will take whichever ticket is the cheapest is how we got into this mess. Orbitz, Expedia, Priceline, and others made it easy for you to do exactly what you're talking about, but made it impossible for airlines to stay profitable. Something had to give. Hence, unbundled pricing.
 
And you're exactly the problem that the airlines are trying to fix with this pricing model. Passengers who care about nothing but price and will take whichever ticket is the cheapest is how we got into this mess. Orbitz, Expedia, Priceline, and others made it easy for you to do exactly what you're talking about, but made it impossible for airlines to stay profitable. Something had to give. Hence, unbundled pricing.

Thank you.
 
And you're exactly the problem that the airlines are trying to fix with this pricing model. Passengers who care about nothing but price and will take whichever ticket is the cheapest is how we got into this mess. Orbitz, Expedia, Priceline, and others made it easy for you to do exactly what you're talking about, but made it impossible for airlines to stay profitable. Something had to give. Hence, unbundled pricing.

Thank you.

Hold your horses gents. Don't lay all of this on the consumer. Because the airline is the enabler. Instead of trying to cater to every Joe Sixpack out there, airlines need to actually post prices that they CAN make a profit with. Those who can afford to fly, will; those who can't, won't. Airlines have perpetuated this problem by trying to "fix" a problem that isn't theirs to begin with, and thus have sunk themselves in trying to do to. More or less creating their own "race to the bottom".

"How we got into this mess" is due to airlines trying to appease these people who are looking for everything on the cheap. Simple fact of life is that not everyone can afford to fly.

Don't want to lose money or operate at a loss as an airline? Then stop offering tickets and such to the flying public that PUT you at a loss. Of course the customer is generally going to take the cheapest......they only would If its offered to them. Airlines put themselves in this mess.
 
"How we got into this mess" is due to airlines trying to appease these people who are looking for everything on the cheap. Simple fact of life is that not everyone can afford to fly.


Amen. People will bitch and complain about the high ticket prices for a while, until they realize they're no longer being nickel and dimed AND that this is the cost of such travel. You wouldn't expect a car company to lower the price of a gas guzzler just because travel will cost more due to high gas prices, why do consumers expect the same out of the airlines?
 
That all sounds well and good, Mike, but it isn't business reality. It worked fine under a regulation environment, but it doesn't work now. Plenty of carriers have come and gone that have tried to do as you suggest. Midwest Express and Legend are two perfect examples. But the business model just doesn't work. You can't stay in business as an airline trying to cater towards a more upscale clientele with upscale pricing. The main reason is that such a business model is dependent upon the business traveler being more discerning in selecting their carrier, but the average business traveler isn't in control of that. The company is, and they all dictate that the lowest priced ticket gets purchased, because it saves the company money. To hell with the employee traveling who has to put up with shoddy service.

If you want airlines to compete based on product (which is how it should be), then you need to bring back regulation. Without regulation, the only way to compete is based on price, and that means that your idea simply doesn't work.
 
ATN_Pilot, I don't think the issue is catering to upscale clientele. Raise the profit-margins just enough across the board to actually be able to remove added charges (aka rebundle them) and not only will the lowest price be the one that is actually the lowest, it won't contain hidden fees. Then again, I'm only a young guy and I don't have the life experience to back it up, but it just seems common sense
 
Doesn't work that way, jrwit. What happens is one airline decides to do exactly that, and then they are the highest priced ticket on Expedia. So what do passengers do? They purchase the lowest priced ticket, and the airline charging enough to make a profit without added fees loses all of its business and leaves with half full airplanes, losing money.

Sorry, it just doesn't work.
 
Well, that sucks.
It just seems like such a stupid game to play from both the consumer and the airline standpoint.

In completely theoretical terms, if the govt. were to say, "ok, all airline tickets must display the price after all fees, surcharges, etc." Would you be in support of that regulation? Or would it lead to borderline anarchy? (I feel like you'd like it based on your picture ;))
 
No, I support a return to full regulation of the industry, like it was prior to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. The CAB took bids for routes from the airlines, and the airline that could provide a reasonable fare while still providing reasonable service was awarded the route. They didn't have to compete for the consumer based on price, because the consumer didn't have five airlines on that route to choose between. Want to go from Atlanta to New Orleans? No problem, that's Delta's route, and they charge $X for it. Sorry, Eastern, you're not allowed to fly that route for a lower price.
 
No, I support a return to full regulation of the industry, like it was prior to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. The CAB took bids for routes from the airlines, and the airline that could provide a reasonable fare while still providing reasonable service was awarded the route. They didn't have to compete for the consumer based on price, because the consumer didn't have five airlines on that route to choose between. Want to go from Atlanta to New Orleans? No problem, that's Delta's route, and they charge $X for it. Sorry, Eastern, you're not allowed to fly that route for a lower price.

While I'm with you on this, let's be honest, and admit that the both the profit margins and the crew compensation at that era was perhaps a bit too rich to be sustainable. Now, don't get me wrong, I'd love to make $250k in 1960's dollars, but I'm not sure that that would have been sustainable.

Further, to everyone who is attracted to the idea of going back to regulation today, I think it's pretty clear that in this day and age that any government regulation that were to be imposed upon us would have far more to do with "ensuring safe and affordable travel to the American public" than it would to "allow airlines to charge a sustainable fare and to ensure that flight crews are fairly compensated."
 
No, I support a return to full regulation of the industry, like it was prior to the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978. The CAB took bids for routes from the airlines, and the airline that could provide a reasonable fare while still providing reasonable service was awarded the route. They didn't have to compete for the consumer based on price, because the consumer didn't have five airlines on that route to choose between. Want to go from Atlanta to New Orleans? No problem, that's Delta's route, and they charge $X for it. Sorry, Eastern, you're not allowed to fly that route for a lower price.
Ahhh, I remember the days of two prices, Y fare or F fare, pick your poison!
 
As a passenger, I really resent the "nickle and diming" that air travel has become. That said, however, a return to the "regulation era" isn't the answer. That era, good or bad, is gone. Forever. Asking the government to step in and "fix" something is a recipe for disaster.

If airlines want to make a profit, they're going to have to do what Apple does. Somehow, they've convinced a lot of people that while there are less expensive products out there that do exactly the same thing their products do, it's better to buy what they are offering.
 
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