I saw Prater at the Alaska shareholder meeting a few days ago. He's a bit chunky, but not Buddha-like fat. Don't know if he really does any work, but he made it clear that he's putting ALPA's strike fund behind the Alaska pilot group. It brought tears to my eyes. Ayer looked a bit stunned. Anyway, thread drift, I know.


The following is an excerpt from a Tripso article on charging for bags.

My predictions:

- This luggage fee is a step too far. AA will eventually have to back off of the fee.
- Problems with controlling carry-on luggage will increase exponentially.
- Delays at TSA checkpoints will increase as more passengers bring more baggage through the inspection points.
- Delays at the boarding gates dealing with luggage arguments will further delay AA flights to less than a 50 percent on-time rating.
- Other airlines will adopt a wait-and-see approach to this dramatic fee increase, forcing AA to rethink their fee structure.
- The Transportation Department will force airlines to disclose these fees in their advertisements. This will allow other airlines to simply raise airfares without raising the total advertised cost of the trip. AA will eventually (perhaps before June 15) roll this fee into their airfares.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24794018/