Pay toilets are next!

You can't take liquids including water past security and then they want to charge for water/drinks???

WTF

We take empty water bottles through security and then fill them at the airport water fountains. I suppose if you must have a sweetened drink, you could take packets of pre-sweetened Kool-aid and mix it inside.

Along the same topic, Southwest Airlines is running a great commercial on the charges It's a fake announcement and they have the point about pay toilets ("exact change required!") and throw in a bunch of other stuff like a $2 charge for hitting the stewardess call button. At the end they, of course, say that Southwest would never charge for stuff like that. I hope all the late night comics and SNL start making fun of them and shame these b*stards.

when you comparison shop and price out your flight just add $15/bag to UA then decide

if you go somewhere else --- good riddance --- I would prefer not have a bunch of whiners on my flight anyhow

kang247 said:i travel a lot, and most ppl I seen just carry a bigger than usual carry-on w/them... this way you dont have to pay the extra 15 for checking luggage.

there no is a bigger incentive for them to police the carry on size rule --- too big (pull out your credit card and pay up)

kkwok8580 said:With all the weight loss hype, airline will soon charge airfares based on passenger weights.

that's fine --- as long as the fat people are allowed bigger seats

jaimelobo said:bradpitt11 said:You can't take liquids including water past security and then they want to charge for water/drinks???

WTFTrue, but you can just buy any drinks you want, once you are past security.

$5 for a bottle of water.

Onenote said: At the end they, of course, say that Southwest would never charge for stuff like that. I hope all the late night comics and SNL start making fun of them and shame these b*stards.
I don't know that I would be calling the other airlines b*stards... Yes, they are charging for a bunch of things, however, the average ticket booked, they are losing $60 on, so they are selling you their product for less than cost. If you book a ticket to a competitive route like Orlando, Las Vegas, LAX, etc. then they are losing far more. Without these fees there would be a lot of airlines going out of business down the road. Perhaps we'd have 3-4 big airlines and thats it. No low cost carriers, and the ones left would be able to charge far more and people would still have to pay it to travel.
You might say, well just raise ticket prices, but that means higher fares that pop up on fare search engines and whatnot, scaring people away. It's hard to raise a fare on a route when theres another airline with a much lower fare, content with losing money on the route.
All in all, adjusted for inflation, ticket prices are still insanely low, especially when you factor in the fact that a barrel of oil is over 10 times as much as it was 10 years ago.

As for Southwest, they play the good guy, but if it weren't for their great fuel hedging position (kudos to Southwest, great business decision) they would be in the same boat...probably worse.

germanpope said:
they should have different types of seats available at different prices --- small, medium, large, super size, XXXL --- they could specify that you are only allowed in particular seats if you meet the weight limit

this would just mean some simple reconfiguation of the planes (ie. 3 by 3 --- XXXL; small; XXXL)

Nah, they would just replace the existing seats with bench seating like in school buses.