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Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

> All told, is all this chicanery benefiting airlines?

Yes.

An example is paid baggage. It used to be that stowage space was mostly a waste of capacity on an airplane. But with the help of modern software making coordinating shipping easier, they can make lucrative money shipping cargo on passenger flights.

So encouraging passengers to not bring bags and keeping that capacity for cargo is a feature, not a bug.

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The tradeoff on short domestic flights is that it encourages more - and larger - carry-ons, which slows down boarding/deplaning and therefore adds to turnaround time. If I don't have to pay for checked bags, I'd often prefer to have mine checked, especially if I have a connection - but since I do, I'll squeeze everything into a carry-on roller bag instead. Personally, it only takes me an extra second or two, but when you have a whole family doing this and only parent who can actually reach the overhead bins, it bogs down the whole aisle.

This is why I love it when airlines charge for carry-on bags, like spirit does. Everyone just has a teeny little backpack. Getting on and off is a breeze.

I always ship my baggage via insured carrier (Fedex, DHL, etc) and take a small carry on for immediate needs. It's MUCH cheaper and safer.

Or I just don't bring anything that won't fit in my lap.

FedEx'ing baggage between home and a distant hotel is awesome. I haven't done it recently, so maybe with airline fees it is always cheaper. It used to be that you had to have a corporate account with enough discounts to make it cheaper than checked luggage.

Big hotels host lots of conferences, legal depositions, business shows, etc. They get a FedEx truck almost daily and don't blink if a package arrives addressed to you with "Guest checking in on XXXX date" appended to it. It happens all the time! And when you leave, you call the front desk and ask them to take a box to the loading dock for the next FedEx truck.

Alternatively, my brother has done a lot of business travel in his life, and I love the advice he gave me:

"Never pack more than you are willing to carry a mile down a gravel road in the rain"

I have yet to regret a trip where I pack extremely light.

When I travel, I often stay in rentals that have laundry machines, because it’s so much easier just to pack light and do laundry every couple of days. I’m also not against packing light with the intention of going shopping if I need something. That’s how I get a lot of fun clothes!

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