Passengers will jockey for storage space in cramped overhead bins. Flight attendants will have to step in to referee and demand that those stuffed suitcases be checked. Ground crews will scramble to load excess oversized carry-ons into cargo holds as the plane idles.
Security backups will grow still longer as passengers throw more bags at screeners to be looked at or opened - some no doubt carrying banned liquids or gels.
Those are the scenes that airline analysts and workers envision if American Airlines' decision this week to charge for all checked luggage prompts other carriers to follow suit - and if travelers rebel by trying to bring as much carry-on baggage as they can get away with.
"It's going to be a nightmare," said Laura Glading, president of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents more than 19,000 workers at American. "It's not just American; all the airlines have the problem with everyone traveling with those roll-aboard bags. There's not enough room for everybody."
American's announcement came just ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, which ushers in a summer travel season already forecast to feature crowded planes, airport delays and rising fares. It also comes at a time when passenger dissatisfaction with airline customer service has reached its highest level since 2001, according to an annual survey by the University of Michigan, and when airlines are under enormous financial pressure from soaring jet-fuel prices and scrambling for whatever new revenue they can find.
American, the country's biggest airline, said it would begin imposing the $15 one-way charge for the first bag June 15, though observers said it could scrap the latest plan to boost revenue if other airlines fail to follow its lead. Many big carriers, including American, began charging $25 for a second checked bag two weeks ago. Spirit Airlines, a small, low-cost carrier, also charges to check every bag.
"They're breaking new ground with this one," said Dean Headley, a Wichita State University marketing professor and co-author of another annual report on airline quality. "It fundamentally changes the promise that the airlines have had with the traveling public. This is fraught with the potential for all kinds of bad consumer outcomes."
Southwest Airlines, the biggest domestic carrier, pledged yesterday that its passengers would still be able to check two bags for free. The airline, which operates more than half the flights at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, started charging $25 for a third bag in January.
