American to charge for FIRST checked bag.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Kevy Baby

This is just simply the classic supply and demand playing itself out. There is a higher demand for flights around Christmas time, so they can charge more for it. The exact same flight in say September is probably cheaper.

What Katie said.

But either way, the fact still remains that people are choosing their flights based on one thing and one thing alone - which flight pops up at the top of a "sort by lowest price" search. Every dollar they can remove from that ticket price will increase their sales. They have no choice, any other option means losing money.