American to charge for FIRST checked bag.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Remember, it's not about revenue from the a-la-cart stuff, it's about making sure they're selling tickets. If they didn't do it, someone else would have, lowering their listed ticket price, cutting into American's (and everyone else's) ticket sales.

They all want that kind of advantage. Baring that, they at least want a level playing field. When they're all including basically the same stuff in the ticket price, they can play with a flight here and a flight there to knock a few bucks off and bump ticket sales by being on the top of that "lowest first" price sort. But if one airline figures out a way to knock $15 off each and every ticket, all of the other's are kinda screwed so they have to follow suit.