Bad News From Jet Blue Bag Fees & More To Come

I've never had occasion to fly on Jetblue because they're mostly domestic East Coast and Caribbean destinations. I might consider them if I was flying a short hop because I can put up with a lot of inconvenience and discomfort for a couple of hours for a much lower fare. Like any other discount airlines there are 'catches', but this sounds way past reasonable. Since they don't fly to Europe hopefully I'll not have any occasion to fly them in the future.

Air travel seems to be getting worse and worse every day! The airlines are constantly reducing features (seemingly without reducing fares), and then re-bundling those same features as "add-ons" to squeeze more money out of the travelling public. They don't seem to mind adding fuel surcharges as soon as the price of oil changes even a small amount, but they're darn slow to reduce those same surcharges. Between this and the increasing hassles with security, air travel is no fun any more.

One article that was linked to the above Independent Traveller article blamed passengers who shop only for the lowest price as one of the reasons airlines are now adopting these tactics. If there was a reasonable alternative to air travel (especially for trips to Europe), I'd certainly consider it. For domestic travel, I was encouraged to see a report on the news yesterday that the idea of a high speed Cascadia rail link from Portland to Vancouver has been revived, and who knows, we may see that at some point in the future.

Air travel seems to be getting worse and worse every day! The airlines are constantly reducing features (seemingly without reducing fares), and then re-bundling those same features as "add-ons" to squeeze more money out of the travelling public. They don't seem to mind adding fuel surcharges as soon as the price of oil changes even a small amount, but they're darn slow to reduce those same surcharges. Between this and the increasing hassles with security, air travel is no fun any more.

One article that was linked to the above Independent Traveller article blamed passengers who shop only for the lowest price as one of the reasons airlines are now adopting these tactics. If there was a reasonable alternative to air travel (especially for trips to Europe), I'd certainly consider it. For domestic travel, I was encouraged to see a report on the news yesterday that the idea of a Cascadia high speed rail from Portland to Vancouver has been revived, and who knows, we may see that at some point in the future.

I wonder what would happen if people began using trains on land & ships to cross oceans as a protest to the airlines?

Colette,

A decrease in passenger numbers is about the only thing that will get the airlines to "smarten up" and start providing decent customer service again. I regularly check the airline reviews and it appears that a lot of them are in a "race to the bottom" at the present time.

If there was decent train coverage in the US, I would definitely use it. But as it is, it is not convenient, not fast, and often as costly as flying. As for using ships to get to and from Europe, that only works if you have 2 weeks in addition to your time in Europe, also not very fast and not convenient for those from other than the East Coast, still have to fly to the embarkation point. Unfortunately neither of those options is likely to reduce the number of flight passengers, even domestically, let alone internationally. You gotta admit the airlines have us over a barrel, you can't just boycott flying unless you change your travel objectives.

High speed rail is an alternative only for short haul travel (basically for segments under 1 hr flight). Also where there are mountain ranges or even hills to cross, the costs of building a high speed rail are prohibitive. The 50 mile high speed segment from Florence to Bologna (nearly all tunneled under the Apennines) cost over $200 million per mile (over €100 Million/km) to build.

Improvement in travel can occur only if true airline competition is allowed to exist and flourish.

Unfortunately that is not the case. There are restrictions on foreign ownership of carriers that can operate within the US or within the EU (both require 51% of local ownership of carriers), and that is why RyanAir or EasyJet cannot fly within the US (or why Virgin America is owned by Virgin only for 49% of the shares).
For transatlantic flights between the US/Canada and Europe there are bilateral agreements that restrict routes and slots.
Then there are restrictions in airport capacity because every time you need to build a new runway to increase capacity in the system, there are lots of interest groups that fight it (NIMBYs, environmentalists, economic interests of housing developers, etc.)

I don't think the issue is much about competition as in barriers to entry as it is about costumers who ultimately settle for the lowest possible sticker price on airlines.

Many people like to complain about how air travel is "getting worse", but at the same time love bargains and look for the cheapest possible fare (and then rumbling about strict-enforced luggage size limits, fees etc that they all knew about).

The only US airline who appeared to have "crossed the line" into a territory many will pay more to avoid in terms of customer service is Spirit. In Europe, there are many people actively avoiding Ryanair as well. They are rutheless in the sense they won't forgive your smallest mistake (1 extra pound on luggage, a forgotten printed board pass on normal paper sheet etc.).

Even here on RS, home of supposedly more discerning travelers making smart choices, we often read about people validating this logic, especially for intra-European flights ("it is just a couple hours, I'd rather cramp myself on a tight seat and have 30 Euro extra to splurge on a fancier dinner" [while secretly wishing gov't mandated minimum pitch and width to make the ordeal more comfortable]. We see that with other means of transportation, like people shooting for all-regional train long-distance trips in Germany to save 15 or 20 Euro, doubling the travel time and using older and/or worse rolling stock. On more backpacker-oriented forums, the latest fad are very crowded bus trips that offer tickets for low prices with low-paid drivers on circuitous road routes.