Baggage tips

Spirit Airlines Inc has agreed to pay up to $8.25 million to settle a class action lawsuit by passengers who said the low-cost carrier blindsided them with surprise carry-on bag fees on tickets bought through third-party travel services.

Checking a bag on American Airlines? It will now cost $40 per bag if you don’t prepay online or $35 if you pay in advance. Previously, the airline was charging a flat $30 per checked bag. American has also increased the price of a second checked bag from $40 to $45.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, March 21. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

The first airline to introduce check-in kiosks at the airport will be the first to get rid of them.

You brought your suitcase to the airport in pristine condition, but when your checked luggage slides down the carousel, you barely recognize it—it looks like it’s been dragged behind the plane during your flight. What happens to our checked bags that make them look so beat-up when they arrive?

With no sign of relief in sight, the TSA’s inability to effectively and efficiently manage airport security screening promises to remain this summer’s biggest bad-news travel story.

Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) have a novel proposal to alleviate the expected congestion at airport security checkpoints this summer. In a letter sent this week to executives at 12 U.S. airlines, the senators called on the carriers to “suspend bag fees for the summer”:

Would you shelve your favorite piece of luggage and instead use a bag plastered with advertisements if it meant you didn’t have to pay airlines’ checked bag fees anymore?

Travelers aren’t the only ones longing for the days of delayed baggage to come to an end.

In 2015, flyers filed 15,260 complaints with the Department of Transportation. That was a 34 percent increase over 2014’s 11,365 complaints.

Airline quality. Quality airline. Either way, that combination of words will strike many flyers as an oxymoron.

UPDATE – Spirit apparently had second thoughts about the new size restrictions, and has elected to forego the changes reported in our article. According to a Spirit representative: “We had been preparing for a potential change in personal item sizes, however we decided a few weeks ago not to implement the change. While we always like to encourage passengers to carry less, we will continue to offer the largest personal size item of any ultra-low cost carrier.”

Baggage fees are the airline surcharge that most fliers love to hate, but a new study shows that they have an unexpected silver lining: They’ve made it more likely for your flight to leave on time.

Four airlines—United, American, Southwest, and Alaska—have been fined by the Department of Transportation (DOT) for “providing inaccurate information to passengers about how much compensation they could potentially receive for being denied boarding against their will, or “bumped” on oversold flights, and for lost, damaged, or delayed baggage.”

Following in Delta’s footsteps, American announced a new baggage tracking service that lets travelers know when their baggage arrives (or fails to arrive) at the airport.

JetBlue Airways burst onto the U.S. domestic airline scene 15 years ago with bigger and more comfortable seats, livable 34-inch seat pitches (pitch is the distance between seats), free inflight entertainment and TV in every seat, and generous checked baggage policies — and when it got a heap of slots at the JFK airport, many hardcore travelers flocked to the airline.

Congressman Rick Nolan (D-Minnesota) introduced legislation today that would require U.S. airlines to provide travelers with a one-page “bill of rights.”

The Department of Homeland Security officially lifted the ban on large carry-on electronics for U.S.-bound flights. At the same time, new enhanced security measures are rolling out, leading airlines to warn travelers of new procedures around the globe.

Checking a bag? Whether you are voluntarily or you’re forced to at the gate, hopefully you’re not flying Envoy Air or ExpressJet Airlines, as they placed last in a study of luggage handling.