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Travel Savvy: Passengers paying for everything in flight

Written by: Anne Garber

Article Overview: Free is too expensive for today's airlines

Travel Savvy: Passengers paying for everything in flight

by Anne Garber

Out went the free meals and in came the fuel surcharges, excess baggage fees and $2 pillows. In the brutal airline business, every penny counts, especially when fuel costs are near record highs.

The Unfriendly Skies:
The price of aviation jet fuel is more than 30 per cent higher than it was a year ago. The International Airline Transport Association estimates every dollar added to the price of crude oil, which could go as high as $80 U.S. a barrel this summer, adds $1 billion U.S. to the airline industry's costs.

But airlines are going to absurd lengths to cut costs. Earlier this year, Air Canada tested a theory that planes stripped of paint fly lighter and, therefore, cheaper. The plan was soon scrapped. Last month, it revealed it was considering carrying wine in a box rather than bottles as a way to cut down on weight and save on wine costs. And last year, the airline got international attention for piloting a pay-for-your-own-pillow plan -- a $2 Comfort Kit with a blanket and inflatable pillow.

At least Air Canada has a pillow option. American Airlines, one of several airlines to eliminate pillows, estimates it saves $700,000 U.S. by eliminating them.

Airlines call it flying à la carte -- asking passengers to pay for everything from a bag of pretzels to an aisle seat. Unbundling free services, they argue, is the only way they can keep fares competitive. Consumer Reports, which examined ever-creeping airline fees in its January issue, calls it nickel-and-diming.

The Miserly Skies:
Herewith, a catalogue of their miserly tactics, sometimes disguised as rewards:

Travel light. A number of airlines have reduced free baggage allowances, and are keeping a keen eye on the scales at check-in. Those extra pounds can add up: I once paid one dollar for my ticket on discount European carrier Ryanair -- and forty dollars for my bag. (Ryanair is a master at getting customers to pay for extra services in return for cheap flights. Last year, the airline generated $265 million U.S. from sources other than air tickets.)

Beginning this month, Air Canada has upped the ante on the baggage-shrinking issue. If you do not check in any luggage, you can get a $10 discount on your Air Canada Tango fare.

In the good old days, if you couldn't afford a roomy business-class seat, you could at least hope for an aisle seat, or better yet, an exit row. Some airlines are now charging for the extra legroom in these choice seats. In March, Northwest Airlines rolled out its leg-room-for-cash plan, charging $15 U.S. for aisle seats.

Will you shop the competition, if its offer is that you don't have to pay extra to book-by-phone?
Please don't call. A number of airlines are offering discounts to get passengers to book through their websites. This amounts to a fee for phoning in your booking, which surely is discriminatory against elderly people who haven't jumped on the information highway. Air Canada charges an extra $20 per passenger for bookings made via telephone instead of the website, up to a maximum of $50 per booking.

Pack a lunch, and headphones. Each time I board a plane I remember what I forgot: those $5 headphones for in-flight entertainment I paid for on my last flight. I have no fewer than a half-dozen pairs from various airlines, all of them in my closet instead of in my carry-on. On a recent charter flight, I witnessed a teen sitting beside me beat the headphone racket: she simply plugged her iPod into the system and tuned in just fine.

Of course, passengers have grown accustomed to going without an in-flight meal on most flights within North America -- or paying $4 to $5 for a sandwich or a soggy slice of pizza. Air Canada is charging $2 for a bag of wine gums. But that's for the large bag -- a real steal.

The Land of Lost Luggage:
Adding insult to injury, airlines lose an enormous amount of luggage every year. Much of this goes unclaimed, and a large portion of that stuff winds up in a retail store; If you're looking for where your lost luggage ends up, the place to start is Scottsboro, Alabama, home to the airlines' lost and not found store. A second unclaimed baggage store is in Boaz, Alabama. The Boaz location was closed for a period after 9/11, but has since re-opened to a booming business.

The Unclaimed Baggage Center has become one of the top tourist attractions in Alabama, set up in a single-story, block-long building in Scottsboro's city-centre. The Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro opened in 1970 and has grown to over 40,000 square feet, taking up a complete city block. Sixty per cent of the items featured are clothing, with the rest being sporting goods, computers, camera equipment, jewellery and other specialty items. Quickly running out of space, a second store was opened in Boaz seventeen years ago. The stores maintain a website that offers directions and even info on accommodations.

Unclaimed Baggage Center was the brainchild of Doyle Owens, an entrepreneur and father of current president and CEO Bryan Owens. Soon after coming up with the idea, Mr. Owens was working with Eastern Airlines, National Airlines and Air Florida. The list of airlines has expanded since then to include other airlines and freight companies. Some things at Unclaimed Baggage Center are brand new and mostly come from freight. Owens Company South, Incorporated, is the parent company doing business as Unclaimed Baggage Center. Bryan Owens is CEO and lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Unclaimed Baggage Center is the top tourist attraction for Jackson County, Alabama and a great asset to that state. No other state can boast of such a unique store!

After almost 100 days of trying to find the owners, the airlines, who don't have storage capabilities for the abundance of lost items, turn to Unclaimed Baggage Center as a place to deposit the unclaimed merchandise.

Some items purchased from the airlines are un-useable or are donated to charity -- such as crutches to the Veterans of Foreign War, strollers to a teen pregnancy center, and clothing to homeless shelters. So you could say that Doyle Owens came up with a novel idea that helps the airlines solve their problem of lost luggage and helps charities and other organization, recycles the items, and provides savvy shoppers with bargains and "retail therapy."

The original store is located at 509 West Willow Street in Scottsboro, Alabama 35768. The phone number is 256-259-1525. It is open Monday-to-Friday 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. CT, Saturday 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. CT and closed on Sundays.

And, yes, you can shop the Unclaimed Baggage Center online. Selections from its inventory are available online on its "Shop 'Til You Drop" section. Naturally, they can't offer their complete inventory online since every one of the thousands of items is virtually a "one of a kind" find. But in order for you to get a sense of the fun and excitement of discovering "lost treasures" yourself, the managers carefully choose merchandise that gives you a hint of the kinds of things you'll find in the store.

How NOT to lose your luggage:

The folks at Unclaimed Baggage like to say there are no lost bags, just lost passengers. So if you don’t want to get lost, here are a few tips:

Clearly label your suitcase with a tag that has updated information on where to find you.
Put additional labels inside your suitcase, in case the outer tag gets lost.

Remember what you stowed in the overhead compartment; that stuff ends up at Unclaimed Baggage, too!
Here's the Unclaimed Baggage website: http://www.unclaimedbaggage.com.

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Article Tags: absurd lengths, air canada, airline business, airline industry, airline transport, aisle seat, american airlines, anne garber, baggage allowances, cheap flights, consumer reports, european carrier, free baggage, free meals, fuel surcharges, international airline, price of crude oil, ryanair, unfriendly skies, wine in a box



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Re: Offline Marketing V/S Online Marketing - [quote="samin":1dlwh4yc]I have heard that there are multinational companies which are spending several thousand DOLLARs each month on their online promotion. Take for example companies like expedia are spending around > $50,000/month on their Pay per click Google/Yahoo ( I just read this somewhere, although not sure). However, I would like to know whether a travel related business can benefit more from online marketing, offline marketing, or equally from both.[/quote:1dlwh4yc] Hi Samin, When I was working at Direct Energy, I think a co-worker of mine told me that the company spent approx. $300,000 to have a banner on the side of the ice rink in the Air Canada Centre for a Toronto Maple Leaf playoff game a few years back. That makes $50,000/month for online marketing seem like nothing, haha. In regards to your question, I think a travel related business will benefit most from online marketing with SEO tactics since people primarily look for cheap flights on the web. Furthermore, having good word of mouth is important as well. Speaking from personal experience, I'll tend to ask my friends and family where they've recently booked a cheap flight rather than go to the local shopping mall's flight booking centers.


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