To you question, I think that perhaps airlines in particular, are in such a tough financial position that they care about that more than they think about their responsibilities as a service company. But another commenter on the LinkedIN thread noted that airlines moves to abstract out things that used to be free is the mad drive to provide the lowest base fare and therefore move up on the list of searches on the OTAs and meta-search engines. Again, unfortunately at the expense of how they treat their customers and obfuscate the real costs of travel.

I, as well as my wife (see comment below) and I’m sure many others have general disdain for the never ending pursuit of ancillary revenues which are most cases are not upgrades of service, just charges for what used to come for free. I was talking to Robert Cole this morning and he had a similar view. I also agree that it would have been a lesser issue if they didn’t charge for checked baggage. But that would imply that the primary intent behind the move was to change passenger behavior — which I do not believe to be the case. It’s just potentially a benefit that results from their new structure.

But back to the communications issues, I’m surprised that I have seen no response by Spirit to any of the negative publicity…and not even support for my post Just foolish. Robert pointed out today that they could have cited passenger research that said boarding delays/inconveniences due to too many large carry-ons was the number one complaint and this is how they were addressing it. But of course that’s not what’s happened. Sometimes it just doesn’t feel that anyone other than the pilots and flight attendants from the airlines actually fly on their own system. Or maybe worse, that because they get free or near-free fares, they don’t SEE what normal everyday passengers do, and therefore miss the opportunity to act as a service business as you state, and provide passengers an experience they want to have again and again (I would omit Virgin and perhaps SWA and JetBlue from the list of offenders).

But airlines are a service business. Sp[irit’s latest move ignores the fact that when we travel — especially on a leisure airline like Spirit — we need to bring things with us.

Airlines have a responsibility to provide a fundamental level of accommodation for passengers and our belongings. Unless you’re doing a day-trip, chances are you’ll have an item too large to stow beneath your seat (especially given the limited amount of legroom found on most airlines, Spirit included). If Spirit said it was eliminating checked bag fees and instead charging for carry-on, I’d have no issue. What Spirit has done is to indirectly hike fares because now nearly every passenger will have to pay a fee to bring their luggage.

Still, it doesn’t matter what we think or say or what journalists write or say. As long as people continue to buy tickets on Spirit, which some will, the airline will remain in business. As long as Spirit operates in a safe and reliable manner, that’s ultimately what free enterprise is about.