My current airline gripe - 12 years and older travel alone. Unaccompanied minors are age 11 or younger. How does a 12 year old navigate an airport? I'd happily pay the charge but it's not an option.

Hopefully they'll give me a pass to get through security with her so I can make sure she's on the right plane. And cross fingers they let Swanie do the same on the other end to pick her up. Apparently it's not official policy but they "usually" let you do it.

Meh, maybe it'll teach a few rubes a lesson to finally see it in those terms.

Well, if I'm going to have to pay for my soft drinks, I'm going back to calling the flight attendants "waiters" and "waitresses".

Not on some of the low-cost Euro carriers.

Also, your $2 in the aiport will usually buy you a larger bottle than what you will get for $2 on the plane. I'm sure they're using this as a way to reduce weight also. They can figure a certain % of passengers won't buy drinks, so they can eliminate having excess that no one will use.

What I hate about this is that it makes the whole business of selecting the best ticket a mess - who's going to go the airline by airline flight by flight break down of the inclusive and exclusive pricing? It's like you need to hire a financial analyst to select a flight for you. I suspect what this will really result in is more brand loyalty as the more you fly a particular airline the more you know if it satisfies your need.

No airline that charges me extra to take along baggage on a journey that requires a flight is EVER going to be satisfying my needs.

!

I agree about brand loyalty. They are also starting to weed out the customers that cost them money.

Remember back in the day when airfares were the same and your chose your airline based upon when and where you needed to travel?

Then they were able to set their own fares, and schedules. Then came the discounted fares. This opened up travel to a whole new segment - the segment who wanted super cheap fares with all services included.

We got spoiled with super cheap gas and super cheap airfares. And now we're paying the price.

A la cart services aren't horrible. The $15 for the bag isn't terrible. Maybe people will stop bringing everything and the kitchen sink with them. As a society we have to much stuff, because we could get what we wanted when we wanted. It was a dangerous trend and now we're seeing the effects of it.

My mom is flying to Canada this year. She isn't being charged for the bags because she has so many flights under her belt. But she doesn't think ahead to bring snacks and then complains about it. But she also got upset with the TSA and missed her flight because she refused to throw away a manicure set (that had 3 banned items in it). So I take her griping with a grain of salt.

And everyone's airfares were the same.

No, that was after they were deregulated. Airlines could set their own fares.