Checked luggage now costs 20 bucks on lowest Air Canada fares
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Taking a page from Ryanair’s playbook, Air Canada effectively began charging bottom-fare customers for checked luggage on Wednesday.
Starting today [April 26], Air Canada customers booking a Tango fare at aircanada.com, will be eligible for up to $20 savings on their return trip if they agree not to make any changes to their booked itinerary, and agree to fly without checked baggage, within the normal carry-on bag allowance only. To obtain the discount, customers simply click on the GO Discount Tango fare option when making their online booking.
Air Canada already sells tickets in a simplified set of five fare types. Of these, “Tango’ is the cheapest, and they already sock it to you for things like seat assignments ($15) and limited mileage earnings (both redeemable and elite-qualifying).
I was amused to see an enthusiastic press release from the “Coalition for Luggage Security,” seemingly a front for a penny-stock company that offers to ship your luggage to your destination in advance of your travels. Their statement, dripping with praise of Air Canada’s new consumer-unfriendly policy, is a howler:
Other airlines should take their lead. We believe more airlines will adopt similar pricing and option models when they realize the savings to consumers and their own business. Soon we may see offering the shipping of luggage during reservations, and charging for carry-ons, or separate lines into airports for those travelers without luggage. The ideas are only limited by the willingness for airlines to become profitable, governments to release their controls on the traveling public, airports to utilize more effective use of space and infrastructure and most importantly for the American people to re-embrace freedom of movement without restrictions.
Look, I am all for carry-ons rather than checked luggage, but checking in bags doesn’t mean you aren’t embracing freedom of movement. What’s next? If you don’t use online check-in, the terrorists have won!? Oy.
But back to Air Canada: They can save the last dance for someone else. I won’t Tango.
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tags: travel | air travel | Air Canada | luggage | jingoism
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April 29th, 2006 at 8:56 pm |
Perhaps I’m being contrarian about it, but I think Air Canada are going absolutely the right way about the “lower costs for no checked baggage” move - one which does make a lot of sense and one which I think we can expect to see more of in years to come. Admittedly it’s all about perceptions of pricing, but I much prefer Air Canada’s approach to Ryanair’s approach of proactively knocking GBP 2.50 off all their prices (er… how can you tell? It’s not as if tickets previously priced at zero + taxes are now priced at taxes minus GBP 2.50!) and charging everyone GBP 2.50 per checked bag. Sometimes I wonder whether Ryanair’s future will be eliminating baggage-handler-staffed baggage holds altogether and insisting that people with currently-checked-luggage-sized luggage have to buy a seat for their suitcase and strap it in, but not very seriously.
The whole “perceptions of pricing” matter is an interesting bit of psychological trickery. This might be apocryphal, but Coke once announced they were considering making vending machines which might rise prices if the ambient temperature was sufficiently high, driving up demand. It is felt that the concept would have been much more popular had they announced they were considering making vending machines which might permit discounts should the temperature be cold enough that business was starting to slacken a little.
April 30th, 2006 at 9:25 pm |
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how to feel about the checked luggage charge. I can understand the business rationale of “a la carte” pricing for all aspects of the airline experience — I think SAS’s chief has said that a la carte is the goal for the airline. (Heck, for that matter, I can understand the business logic of making planes standing-room-only…) But as a consumer, I just detest any escalation in the race to the bottom.
We’ll see how customers react. I actually checked fares on Air Canada earlier today for an upcoming trip to Montreal, but Tango fares weren’t even available. Only Tango Plus, which “comps” your luggage… So I have yet to see the new policy in action.
July 22nd, 2007 at 11:33 am |
This is about mind-control. Years ago I went into a bank and there was a sign that stated, ‘Open an account by July and get FREE cashier service!’ Of course this was the way the bank was spinning and massaging its campaign to get its customers to accept yet another fee for something which they had gotten for free historically. So its all about deception, manipulating, conning, and all other sorts of behaviors that we ostensibly try to teach our children are - what was that word?? Ah yes - wrong. So businesses are allowed to behave in ways individuals are admonished not to and somehow this is a good thing?