Luggage Fees Cause Unintended Difficulties

I’ve been thinking about the mess caused by luggage fees as a lesson in unintended consequences. While airlines surely expected that passengers would carry on more luggage to avoid paying fees to check it, I wonder whether they anticipated the level of trouble this has caused.

My daughter was flying cross-country recently, boarding a Delta 757 in Los Angeles, and the plane ran out of overhead storage space before half the passengers had boarded. Flight attendants came through with tags to gate check all the bags that wouldn’t fit under the seats, much to the distress of many remaining passengers, including one being forced to check her bridesmaid’s dress the night before a wedding.

On our recent trip across the country, my husband and I  saw our carry-on wheelies gate-checked, as we expected, for two legs on regional jets. But we also had to check them on the leg from JFK to LAX on a crowded 757, although they were well within the size limits.

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