UPDATE: June 14: [Editor's note: A reader has asked for a clarification of this fee. Here it is: "Th

Mark DuPont, American's cheap hotel washington dc vice-president Airport Services Planning, spoke with me yesterday about the checked bag fee and other changes at American. I raised several of the questions that readers have raised. DuPont's answers have been edited for space and clarity.
The price of crude oil is much higher than it was a year ago. It's nearly $140. The effective price for airlines is about $30 more than that, because of the cost of refining it for jet fuel. We believe that our pricing for the services we provide customers is very competitive. We estimate cheap hotel washington dc that only about one in four passengers will pay the fee, after you account for the fact that some people will pack more efficiently to avoid the fee and others will buy tickets that are exempt from the fee (first class, business, many full-fare tickets, and ticketholders who have elite status in AA Advantage or in Oneworld , our alliance with select foreign airlines.)
If we raised our fares, and our competitors didn't, we would no longer have competitive cheap hotel washington dc fares and we would lose customers. We estimate that 78 percent of our customers fly us only one time in the course of a year. They are not repeat customers in a short-term sense. Many of these customers buy their tickets online. If we don't have the lowest price on a route and if we don't show up on the first screen cheap hotel washington dc of airfare search results, we will lose the business of customers. We have attempted to raise fares, cheap hotel washington dc but this has not been as successful. We know for certain that we will make several hundred million dollars on an annualized basis by charging this fee. We could not be sure that we would make the same revenue if we raised our fares instead, because we can't predict how many people will stop buying tickets as a result of a fare hike.
[Editor's note: Last week, American Airlines briefly raised its fares again, but rivals did not match the fare increase and earlier this week it lowered its fares again. Yesterday, cheap hotel washington dc American Airlines raised its fuel surcharge by $20 per round trip on many routes.]
Some of our readers have commented that the $15 fee should come with a guarantee that bags will be delivered on time. They say it is unfair cheap hotel washington dc to pay a checked bag fee and then not have the bags be delivered properly. What do you think about that?
UPDATE: June 13, 12:23 p.m.: Editor's note: I misquoted Mark when I wrote: "We do not have a policy of refunding fees if a bag is lost and never delivered." Here is what he actually said, "The bag policies will continue cheap hotel washington dc to be the same as they have been prior to this new charge. cheap hotel washington dc As in the past, we will continue to evaluate each lost bag on a case-by-case basis."
But we are always reviewing our policies. I would like to point out that we have a pretty amazing delivery rate. 991 out of every 1,000 bags are delivered with their customer at the same time. Of the rest of that missing 0.9 percent of luggage, the majority of those bags end up being on the next flight in to that destination. When you consider cheap hotel washington dc those percentages, very, very few bags are ever actually lost.
Those passengers who have to pay the $15 fee will be able to do so at the curb using a credit cheap hotel washington dc card. Our skycaps cheap hotel washington dc are trained to handle this function. I would like to add that starting June 15, the $2 curbside fee that used to be applicable to all passengers using curbside check-in will no longer exist. Right off the bat there is no longer that fee, and that's good thing.
If you prefer to, you can instead go inside the terminal and deal with an agent to check your bags and pay your fee. Or, if you want to use our self-service kiosks, all of our kiosks will be ready to let you check in as you do today. When you enter your credit card or your record locator number, the kiosk will let you know if you must pay the fee or if you are exempt from having to pay the fee. It will make you aware if you don't have to pay (because you're flying business class or are exempt for some other reason).
If you do have to pay, the screen will indicate you are subject to the $15 bag fee, it will ask if you want to use your credit card, and then you move as you would to the agent. The agent will tag your bag with a sticker for your destination and he or she will give you a receipt for your $15 charge.
We will position AA agents or some vendor cheap hotel washington dc contractors to assist people before they get into security lanes to make sure that they have not exceeded the check-in limits. If they exceed the check in bag limits they will be sent back to repack and dump any items that exceed the limit.
We list our carry-on bag limits at our website. The basic rule is this: "You're allowed one carry-on bag and it must fit in an overhead compartment or under the seat. It should not exceed 45 linear inches (length + width + height should equal 45 inches) and it should not weigh more than 40 pounds. You're also allowed to bring one personal item (briefcase, purse, or laptop item).
If you get through security and get to the gate and if you're within our carry on policy, you'll be boarded as normal. If the carry on bin space is full, we will gate check your bag and make sure it's available cheap hotel washington dc on arrival at your destination. If you are instead exceeding your carry on requirement, then you do subject yourself to a fee at that point.
UPDATE: June 14: [Editor's note: A reader has asked for a clarification of this fee. Here it is: "The fee that would be charged if a passenger cheap hotel washington dc has not adhered to the carry-on policy is the new first checked bag fee of $15 because the bag would then have to be checked," according cheap hotel washington dc to a spokesperson for the airline.]
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