American to charge for FIRST checked bag.

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

But the airlines can do it anyway because there are a lot of people who would rather die than take a bus.

I disagree. The airlines are fiercely price competitive. They are engaged of a battle to the death at the moment. It is very difficult for any one of them to try to raise their prices on a particular route (see Alex's post above). There is no oligopoly here: there is definitely market driven pricing going on. Since the airlines cannot increase the published fare price, they have to find other ways of generating revenue.

Besides, you can't take a bus to Hawaii