By your logic, Wilbo, Spirit should drop all its ticket prices to $10, and then charge each passenger a $200 “travel fee”.
Yes, I know. Perhaps I should have underlined “would” in that post.
Great. Then Schumer, should have said that’s the reason he was eliminating the loophole. As it is, when you read articles about this and hear him speak, he says that he’s proposing to close the loophole to protect consumers, so that they can carry their essential needs on the plane with them.
Your outrage on this matter has conflated several issues into one.
First, there’s nothing wrong whatsoever with a politician arguing that an industry may be trying to screw consumers. Schumer has also stated his concerns that if Spirit does this, then many other airlines may follow. He doesn’t want it to become common practice for airlines to charge very high fees for people to take a bag onboard. That’s a reasonable position. And I read that most major airlines have now stated that they are not going to charge for carry on bags.
Second, Spirit has every right to unbundle its costs and price its services however it wants to. However, to the extent that a change from ticket prices to optional fees undermines the fair taxation of those services, that’s wrong.
Third, I don’t think I fundamentally have a problem with Spirit charging for carry-on bags, so long as it doesn’t become common practice and it doesn’t become a way of evading excise taxes. Some people may want to have ultra-low fares knowing that the tradeoff is that they can only bring very, very small carryon bags that fit under the seat in front of them (or maybe they’ll be screwed and get a bulkhead seat with no ability to stow anything).
Finally, the free market doesn’t mean that companies are immune to criticism. Get over it.
Where did I say that? Your usename is very appropriate after that post.
Spirit should charge whatever they want to.
Am I in favor of any excise taxes? No, not me personally. But if they government needs to change the excise tax structure to be fair in how it collects taxes in the airline industry, I’ve got no beef with that, as long as you’re upfront about what you’re changing.
But, in your example, the traveler fee does not appear to be optional. In the real world example the overhead bin fee is optional. And if I’m a light packer, I might like having my fare lower, since I don’t use the overhead bins.
I know plenty of people who remember flying pre-deregulation who have said for years that the American airline industry needs to be re-regulated. I can’t comment on whether or not flying under regulation was better than it is now since I was born after 1978.
Well, this is what Senator Schumer says in a press release:
The passenger fee is also optional. If you don’t board the plane, you don’t pay the fee, and forfeit your $10 “ticket price”.
Let’s try another example - what if Spirit scales its fees according to passenger weight? Weigh under 100 lbs.? Half-price flight to Chicago for you! 101-200 lbs.? Full price. 201-400 lbs.? A 50% surcharge. 401 lbs. and up? You get to ride in the luggage hold.
Would you complain if Senator Schumer introduced legislation to block that sort of price structure?
I’m going to completely side-step the Schumer tie-in, but completely agree that he is a loon…
As for Spirit and their Carry-on fee for overhead bin items - I would like to see all the airlines do the same, with the following condition: checked bags are free.
I’m so tired of passengers and their carry-ons delaying the boarding process. If it’s more than a purse or simple laptop bag, check the damn thing. I don’t even want to bother with the under the seat in front of you provision cause I’m already picturing passengers trying to “put 10 pounds of poop in a 5 pound bag” there as well (just like they try with the overhead bins now).
It’s not the role of government to opine on private companies marketing strategies. And if every airline wanted to raise the price of their tickets by 200% and tack on a $200 baggage fee. That’s within their right as a private company.
They won’t do it because demand would fall to far. This is an example of the government poking its nose where it doesn’t belong.
WRT to the excise tax. I don’t care, as long as it when the change is made, it is explicit about the reason for the change.
Not likely. The point of baggage fees is to reduce takeoff weight, and therefore fuel usage - it’s got nothing to do with boarding times. Checked baggage is far heavier (for obvious reasons) than carry-on luggage.
Misleading. The Airlines collect the tax from the consumer and remit it to the federal government. The paragraph makes the average reader assume that it is a tax expense of the company they are trying to avoid.
Treating “fares” and “fees” differently for tax purposes is silly. One can make a case that the taxes are excessive (and of course the consumer ultimately pays them), but fixing a bug in the tax law that counts one but not the other is simple common sense.
I don’t know. As long as it wasn’t legal discrimination. Are the obese a protected class?
As long as a company’s doesn’t violate existing laws (civil rights, health and safety or otherwise) why should the government care if one company wanted to create a complex pricing scheme. If it confuses consumers and drives them away, the company is probably not going to continue doing it.
But it was the current administration that introduced this bi-farcated structure this past January.
It is, although I bow to your estimation of what the average reader assumes.
Look, this isn’t complicated. By decoupling the baggage fee from its ticket price, Spirit is taking advantage of a loophole in the tax code as it relates to air fares. Schumer isn’t targeting Spirit; he’s targeting the Treasury Department’s ruling that carry-on luggage is “non-essential”.
Spirit will be free to continue to charge separately for checked luggage if Schumer’s proposed legislation passes; it just won’t receive a competitive advantage for doing so.
No, they’re not a protected class. However, the law could be interpreted as gender discrimination, since men are heavier than women.
That’s irrelevant. The government is free to offer protection to unprotected classes. It just doesn’t have to.
What??? There is a different law of gravity applied to the bags when they are checked rather than crammed into the bin above your head?
I think you said that everyone who is currently for it would be against it if they only knew.
I can see how a lot of people would support the tax even if they knew.
I think the excise tax pays for air traffic control, so if Spirit Air passengers pay less then ultimately all other passengers will pay more.
Just because it isn’t phrased the way you want it to be (“OMG Senator DUMBASS Schumer wants to RAISE YOUR TAXES!!!”) doesn’t make it misleading. I think the way it was explained is perfectly accurate.
Again, there is no requirement, guideline, or suggestion anywhere in the law, the Constitution, or anywhere else that says that politicians have to remain quiet about various company’s business practices.
Spirit is perfectly free to charge what and how it wants to within the bounds of the law, and people – including elected politicians – are perfectly free to say they are jerks. There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with that. There was a time when public accommodations were able to discriminate on the basis of race – were politicians wrong to criticize the bus company, or lunch counters, or whatever, for pursuing business in the way they wanted to? It’s a free market, right? There was also a time in which energy companies were charging outrageous rates of electricity for no apparent reason – should politicians have remained silent about Enron?
Actually, let me ask you a more important question: when are politicians allowed to question or criticize the way a company does business?
Flying was much more expensive but flights were much mroe comfortable and airlines didn’t file for bankruptcy protection every 5 years.