Travel Forum / Travel Types / Air Travel / May 2008

From Businessweek.

Memo to American Airlines: You Need a PR Transfusion

Posted by: David Kiley on May 27

There is much hub-bub over American Airlines¹ $15 fee for a checked bag, and
the PR fallout with consumers.

PR fallout? That would presume that the airlines had any credibility at all
with consumers and business travelers in the first place.

When I hear that businesses have difficulty passing along rising fuel costs
to consumers, I scratch my head. What do people expect when they see gas
rising above $4.00 per gallon? Do they think the price of corn flakes going
by their cars on the highway in a tractor trailer truck paying even more for
diesel fuel isn¹t going to go up?

American is charging $15 per checked bag rather than nosing up ticket prices
for a few reasons. Business travelers on whom they depend hardly ever check
a bag, so they are unaffected. Even if they do check a bag, they don¹t care
because it doesn¹t add up to enough money for most companies paying for
business travel to care.

This is a move to soak non-business travelers, and discourage people from
over-packing, thus reducing weight.

It is a canard to think that most people choose airline flights based on
price when the price between two carriers is within $50.00. People choose
flights based on where they have frequent-flyer accounts, and by schedule
before they start quibbling over $15.00 or even $50.00. Because, even in
hard times, time is worth more than the money. Try and book a flight based
on your time needs, and you would be extremely lucky to find more than one
caarrier choice. True, if you have some time flexibility, you might have a
choice. But more often than not, you get backed into a flight choice based
on scheduling.

Here is a bit of the chatter on the issue at Skytalk.

Weber-Shandwick is allegedly American¹s PR counselor. Here is a memo, for
which I am not going to charge.

Dear Client: Instead of instituting a fee for checked bags, which will be a
lightning rod of bad publicity, please consider burying the cost of rising
fuel in across-the-board ticket price increases. Consumers understand that
many consumer prices are rising because of increasing fuel costs. What they
don¹t like, or understand, is when companies begin charging for items they
have previously gotten for free‹a single checked bag, a soda, a bag of
chips, a WiFi connection, etc. The best solution to this problem is to stay
out of the news, not to lean into it and ask for a pie in the face.

T  http://blogs.businessweek.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/10444.1438613876