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Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

So the author argues that baggage handling is more efficient and trackable than before, but baggage fees are "a disincentive to check luggage"?

I accept that baggage fees are designed to mask a lower advertised fare and/or extract more pax revenue. And I don't understand the mad rush to skip baggage claim and get out of the airport 15 minutes quicker. Baggage tracking and recovery is indeed a lot quicker and I've never had a problem. And the lines at car rental desks and taxi pickups didn't magically get shorter in my recent observations. In fact they're longer.

I suppose that makes me an outlier, but the ~$25 is worth taking all the stress out of queueing at the gate and trying to get on as quickly as possible. Your time/value equation might be different.

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* It costs money to check a bag. It costs nothing to carry it on.

* There is a non zero chance of a checked bag getting lost or damaged. The chances of that happening to a carry on are essentially 0.

* 15 minutes to get your checked bag may be the average. Sometimes the carosel has already started by the time I get there, but other times, I've waited nearly an hour (looking at you Salt Lake City).

So what your saying is that the cost + added risk + added time is worth it to you vs queueing at the gate to fight for overhead. I suggest you pay the $15 upgrade to get in the front of the queue instead of the $25 bag fee and just carry on.

It costs money to check a bag. It costs nothing to carry it on.

If I can spend an extra half hour in the lounge doing a little light work or relaxing before the flight instead of jostling in line, it definitely has value.

Like I said, the value of your time will probably differ from mine. For me, $25 is a bargain.

> It costs money to check a bag. It costs nothing to carry it on.

Depends on the size of the bag. Critical to the discussion, since you'd only be checking luggage too big to put in an overhead.

> I suppose that makes me an outlier, but the ~$25 is worth taking all the stress out of queueing at the gate and trying to get on as quickly as possible. Your time/value equation might be different.

I think the math just starts changing when you're not traveling by yourself. If it's even a small family of 3, traveling with checked luggage is suddenly $150 roundtrip. Sure, largely insignificant compared to the cost of the tickets themselves, but still enough to make you think twice about it.

And be careful if you have an overnight layover (or just crossing midnight), or some airlines will attempt to charge you baggage fees per leg.

Delta tried to do that to me until a helpful baggage claims person assisted.

I've been flying my family overseas from the time my children were infants, and you're right that the fees are insignificant when you're paying the current rates to fly 4 people during high travel season.

But I'll just add another casual observation that people travel with way too much shit.

For a family of 4 we've never needed more than 2 suitcases, and maybe only one is packed to the max. If I had 200 pounds of luggage (+ carryons) for 4 people staying 2 weeks in Europe I'd probably be reconsidering a few things.

> But I'll just add another casual observation that people travel with way too much shit.

One thing I started doing after trips is doing a "post-mortem" of sorts, basically:

1) How much did I use this item I packed?

2) Would it have changed my trip significantly without this item?

If the answer is "rarely" and "not really", I don't pack it next time.

My time/value equation includes the experience of having had my luggage lost enough times that checking baggage only feels worthwhile when I'm not especially going to need whatever it is I would be checking on the other end of the trip, and in that case, why bother bringing it? I'd rather bring less stuff and be sure of having it. Saving money on baggage fees and time waiting for the loading/unloading process is a nice bonus.

But that just demonstrates why the existing process is poorly designed: it encourages wasteful activity: overloading the bins and randomly screwing people who board later, a mad fight to get in first when everyone leaves at the same time, and underusing the more efficient checked bag system.

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