But airlines decided to actively discourage people from checking bags with ever more insane checked bag fees (e.g. $25 on a $100 ticket!) and even worse if you try to take a bag that is clearly too big onboard, they waive the fee at the gate which "punishes" the people responsible enough to check.
Honestly the entire system seems silly to me.
Less frequent travelers I know stopped checking luggage in after the airlines started charging.
Add in the dangers of flight cancelations (sorry your bag is on this plane and we can't get it until tomorrow), the time spent waiting at the belt to pick up on the other side, the chance of damage, and the fees, and nope, I never check and never will when I can avoid it.
Edit: This is also plausible - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9691867
The problem is that cheaper air shipping means it may very well be in the same plane I'm flying on, insane as that sounds. Then multiple middlemen all trying to get their cut, etc.
Shipping is infinitely more reliable than airline baggage, which is weird to me. The difference in loss rates is like 100 to 1. Everyone knows someone who ended up with missing baggage if not themselves, but its incredibly rare to lose a tracked postal package. I really don't understand this beyond maybe baggage handlers are more likely to be thieves than USPS mailmen.
Maybe there are more restrictions/logging that prevents mail from getting lost. I would find that a bit weird (that USPS would be more secure) but I somehow doubt it's because postal workers are just more honorable.
What annoys me is the airlines that have responded to this problem by posting "minders" outside the security gates.
These folks are usually positioned to maximally embarrass and psychologically pressure (there are people behind you waiting!) anyone foolish enough to try to prove their bag actually does fit, even in the absurdly small "tester" frame.
And whatever you think of the TSA, I don't like airlines piggy-backing on the nominally important security process. It's dishonest "authority by association"—the TSA couldn't care less about a few extra combined inches in your luggage—and promotes degrading the screening process into general purpose policy enforcement.
[1] http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-tsa-screeners-...
You probably know this, but to be fair, this is because they need to make a certain amount to have a viable busines, and an easy way to do that is to reduce ticket prices while increasing fees for other services. In the absence of checked bag fees (and assuming all else is equal) that hypothetical $100 ticket probably would have been closer to $125. But there is clearly a psychological difference.
> if you try to take a bag that is clearly too big onboard, they waive the fee at the gate which "punishes" the people responsible enough to check.
Yea that is a bit unfair. But it likely stems from the fact that airlines often end up gate-checking bags, once the overhead bins are full. If they enforced the bag check fees at the gate and had to measure every bag to decide if it should be free or charged, flights would be delayed and passengers would be (even more) unhappy.
Who does this?? Try bringing a bag slightly too big or too heavy to the gate with Ryanair, EasyJet, Jet2.com, GermanWings or WizzAir - you will pay 5x as much as it would have cost to have it checked in normally. Is it a US-only thing?
If not, they certainly don't wave the fee. . . damned protruding wheels.