Senators to airlines: Drop bag fees to shorten airport lines

"Many passengers avoid the fees by carrying more luggage on the plane, leading to competition for limited space in the overhead bins."

This is ridiculous, no one should bring more than one small bag that fits easily into the overhead bin and a waistpouch onto the plane. I remember a United flight attendant berating the passengers for stuffing a bin to the point where he couldn't close it, actually it was funny, tee hee!

A spokeswoman for the nation’s largest airlines called the senators’ proposal a misguided attempt to re-regulate airlines and could make airline travel more expensive — fares would rise to offset the loss of money from fees.

Can anyone explain that logic to me?

fares would have to rise to offset the loss of money from fees, OK I get that.

make airline travel more expensive, This is the part that loses me.

It's common knowledge that this is just a profit-generating tactic for airlines - they pretend to sell you tickets at rock-bottom prices, but then they tack on hundreds of dollars in add-on fees for the services that used to come for free. They used to ignore when your bag was slightly over the weight limit, now that's a $50-100 charge. They used to let you just pick your seat within your traveling class, now practically every row that isn't completely miserable to sit in carries an extra $150 charge. This is all part of their game, and they've made record profits with it (much like how when fuel was expensive they tacked on fuel surcharges, and when it became cheap those surcharges didn't disappear). If they won't regulate themselves, I have no problem with the government regulating them. In this day and age a reliable air transportation system is a need, not a luxury.

The terrible thing is though, while all these bag fees and whatnot do slow down the works a bit, they're far from the biggest delays in any American airport I've been to. For that, you have to look straight at the TSA. Inefficient, ineffective, and rude to boot, the TSA is by far the largest spanner in the American travel system's works. And they're unfortunately following the airlines' model. Now you can pay extra to have your inspections and body scans and abuse by unqualified TSA agents expedited. I guess one thing we can be sure of is that terrorists never have wealthy backers, eh? It's just more evidence that the airline industry in the US isn't about maximizing traveler safety, it's about squeezing every last penny out of passengers by intentionally making the experience as miserable as possible and then allowing people to pay extra to get something slightly better.

The TSA pre-check (and Global Entry) costs around US$100.00, and requires a lot of information on you, your employment record, and all the countries that you have visited over the last 5 years. However, not all countries are allowed into the programme. NO money back if for any reason your application is declined.