Originally Posted by
acl65pilot
Great idea, and one that our President EB has stated is his desire. I believe that what you are seeing with the decoupling of services is step one, and step two and three will be surcharges for variations in fuel, landing fees, etc, but right now our sector of the market does not support more than the limited fuel surcharges that they levied a few years ago.
It supports bag fees that are many times the pilot costs for the flight.
Originally Posted by
acl65pilot
Again a great idea, but like a fare bump, unless it is supported by the sector it will not sustain. DAL would never sign a contract with us for money that they are not 100% sure that they could reel in. I like the idea though.
Again, ACL, let the bean counters worry about this. It is a problem they created and, even though DALPA has pretty much let them off the hook the last few years, they should be smart enough to have figured out that this would eventually become an issue. They've been getting a bargain basement deal on pilots for several years now. It's time to pay the piper.
Originally Posted by
acl65pilot
Everyone is looking at way to add revenue to the bottom line. I think that if the full service airlines could add the fees you suggested they would. What I do find ironic is that pilots are begging for more fees when they were complaining about how cheap it was to charge for bags a few years ago.
I'm not a fan of the fees either. I think it's a semi-dishonest way to do business. Our customers don't like it either. SWA is having a field day with very effective ads highlighting this problem... and I wouldn't be surprised if this has cost us more than it's brought in.
But if they're going to go the fee route and they won't pay us more without bringing in the additional revenue to cover it, then maybe it's time to add a pilot surcharge. I just find it kind of interesting (and sad) that a passenger's checked bag is worth way more than the pilots flying him to his destination.