Robyn Blilie packed carefully for her 10-day business trip to Europe, with just a single pair of sensible black heels to go with her suits. She wanted to check a suitcase and carry on a small duffel bag and laptop bag without any hassles.
"It's like this mad dash to get overhead bin space," said Blilie, who flew Tuesday to Helsinki via Amsterdam from Minneapolis-St. Paul.
In a move industry observers see as a reaction to more passengers carrying on baggage to avoid fees and to the chaos that ensues in the scramble to stow stuffed bags, low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines became the first Tuesday to say it would add fees for placing carry-on luggage into overhead bins.
Starting Aug. 1, Florida-based Spirit will charge up to $45 per carry-on bag that can't fit under the seat. The airline says it's reducing fares by about that same amount, suggesting that in this case restoring order to getting on and off its planes is a bigger motive than increasing revenue. Passengers who pay in advance will pay $30 to carry on a bag but just $25 to check it. That could encourage passengers to check more bags.
In any event, it will be the passenger who pays. Although it's a small airline with no history of setting industry precedents, if Spirit's move calms the clamor in the aisle, some observers believe major airlines will follow suit.
"I'm sure we've all seen someone walk by and think, 'How in the hell are they going to get that (bag) into the overhead bin?' " said Terry
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Trippler, an air-travel expert based in Minneapolis.
The carrying-on with the carry-ons has gotten so intense that flight attendants are urging Congress to set enforceable baggage limits.
In March, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA released the results of a membership survey that showed one out of two flight attendants witnessed carry-on items falling from overhead bins in the previous 60 days. The survey supports the view that carry-on baggage is out of control since airlines slapped on fees for bags to ride in the belly of the plane.
American Airlines began charging for checked bags in 2008 as fuel prices skyrocketed. Other airlines soon followed, and the prices have only risen, even as fuel prices have dropped. The fees have become increasingly lucrative for an industry that's been unable to boost fares, still the biggest generator of airline profits.
Fares in the third quarter of 2009 were down 14 percent from the same period a year earlier, the largest decline on record, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. At the same time, baggage-fee income more than doubled, to $740 million, for 10 large carriers included in the most recent bureau report.
Delta and Northwest combined generated more than $208 million in checked-baggage fees in the third quarter of 2009 alone, up from $80 million in the same period the previous year. Fees of all types topped $670 million at the two carriers during the three-month period, up from nearly $428 million in the third quarter of 2008.
The third-quarter report shows Delta gleaned $24 per passenger in fees for the period; Northwest notched $20. The industry average was $12 per passenger.
Delta, the largest carrier at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, charges $23 to $25 for the first checked bag on flights within the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico and allows one free checked bag for international travel.
Delta allows one carry-on bag and one personal item onboard at no charge, plus one extra smaller item like a coat or an umbrella.
Since airlines began charging for checked bags, the number of carry-on bags that screeners see at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport has gone up 20 percent, often making security lines longer at peak times, said Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Airports Commission.
Marty Flores flew from St. Augustine, Fla., to the Twin Cities via Atlanta on Delta Air Lines on Tuesday and was able to carry on two small bags free. But if the Spirit Airlines decision to charge passengers for checked overhead baggage spreads through the industry, that'll change.
Flores, a regional director for the Shoreview-based Empi medical device company, once believed baggage fees were reasonable — but no longer.
"I could see it when gas prices were high, but now it seems they just want to make money," he said.
Shirley Garcia of Columbus, Ohio, flew into MinneapolisSt. Paul for a stay at Abbott-Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis with just a small duffel bag to avoid checked baggage fees. In the past, she would have checked a bag.
"Truthfully," she said, "I think they're just price gouging."
Gita Sitaramiah can be reached at 651-228-5472.