Bag Charges

This came up in travel news this week...from several different Brit sources.

Jet2....a discount airline out of the UK (number four on the list)....has a new policy.  If you intend to board the plane, and don't check any luggage in (meaning that you have a small-travel bag that you will lug as you board)....then there's a charge for that hand-bag (2.59 pounds per bag, each way).

That's 3.25 dollars roughly....per bag.

You can do the math....a Welsh couple jetting off to some Spanish isle for 3 days of reckless fun and carrying only the bare minimum of clothing along....will pay $13 extra to get their bag each within the cabin.

Various reasons will be given for the charge.  Some folks argue that the older planes, while designed for 90 passengers....weren't designed in some way to handle the 90 folks having the mini-bags that you typically see dragged onto the plane.

I sat a couple of weeks ago on a Delta-flight in the US and observed dozens of people dragging bags which would just barely fit into the overhead bin.  In one case, with the whole plane full (every seat taken)....they had three bags which wouldn't fit anywhere, and they had to drag them back to the front and have 'Joe-the-bag-dude' reopen the baggage area to dump them in.

I can understand the logic to this but it's just another stupid charge added to your ticket.  In some situations, you could be looking at three or four cost-elements added to your 100-Euro airline ticket, and making it 150-Euro instead.