- They estimate that 25% of passengers will be affected by the $15 first bAAg fee;
- That's because (same story), 75% of summer travelers have already bought their tickets and thus won't be asked to pay the bag fee;
- Thus, travellers need not worry about being inconvenienced [oh, and please book on AA ASAP].
Makes perfect sense - until you start looking further:
- Back when the fee was announced, AA said that only half of their passengers check a bag. If true, then only 50% of the 25% percent (of passengers that haven't bought summer tickets yet) may pay the fee.
- Then remeber that a bunch of those pax are international and / or elite and / or bought a full price ticket - so no bag fee applies.
- Now figure that less people will be willing to check a bag because they now have to pay $15.
Now we're figuring maybe 5-10% of summer travellers on AA will pay this first bag fee? Hmmm..
At $15 a bAAg, that's still a lot of money. But AA is certainly getting a TON of bad publicity for this and they don't seem to know how to make a bad story go away. FMV's advice - just zip it already! Don't keep trying to explain it, don't keep trying to justify it, and for goodness sakes - DON'T try to tell your customers that it's actually a "bargain" !!
"The airline defended the fee, saying it was a bargain compared with the cost of shipping a 45-pound bag overnight on a package-delivery company. A spokesman for the airline said the cost of sending a bag from Dallas to New York would range from $150 to $230 or more."
FMV is also thinking of making this a paid site for our new customers for $10 a month. We figure it's a huge bargain compared to paying for online newspapers, CNN.com, espn.com and others! oh wait, those are free too....
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