Airlines Need to Boost Revenue. They’re Coming for Your Bags.
2 min
Airlines facing tough financial comparisons after a bumper year have a plan to boost revenue that fliers will hate. They’re raising the price of checking your bag.
Delta Air Lines , the latest company to announce a price hike, announced last week it was increasing the cost of a passenger’s first checked bag to $35 from $30 and a second bag to $45 from $40. The company last increased checked baggage fees in 2018. American Airlines and United Airlines made similar changes, raising baggage fees by about $5, and JetBlue Airways and Alaska Airlines have also raised prices.
Airline companies are dealing with a double whammy. Higher labour costs and an uptick in maintenance costs are eating into revenue. Meanwhile, domestic demand has softened , hitting pricing power for airlines.
Fees are a significant and growing source of revenue for airlines. U.S. airlines generated $6.8 billion from bag fees in 2022, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics , up from $5.3 billion in 2021. American Airlines generated $1.4 billion from baggage fees that year, which accounts for less than 3% of its 2022 revenue. United made $1.1 billion, or 2.6% of its 2022 revenue; Delta pocketed $980 million, or 2.1% of its 2022 revenue.
It’s likely those figures grew in 2023, a record-breaking year for travel with six of the 10 busiest days in U.S. aviation history, according to the Transportation Security Administration. With airlines hiking prices on the first checked bag by an average of 17%, that number could rise again this year.
That should help offset the decline in airfare. Ticket prices were 6% lower in January compared with the year-ago period, according to January’s consumer price index data. Online travel agency Hopper expects domestic fares to remain below 2023 and pre pandemic levels for at least the first half of the year.
Hopper’s lead economist Hayley Berg said more planes in the air have helped bring prices down. “Price relief on domestic airfare comes as domestic seat capacity has maintained at least a 5% lift over 2019 levels throughout 2023,” she said.
Ultimately, baggage fees account for between 2% and 3% of revenue for the largest U.S. airlines. But the market will be judging United, American, and Delta against a strong 2023, so every little helps. All three stocks have risen between 7% and 10% in 2024. And there are other more important factors, such as costs, demand, and capacity constraints, that will have a larger impact on earnings.
Of course, earnings aren’t the first thing on the minds of travellers who are now getting hit with higher fees.
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The lunar flyby would be the deepest humans have traveled in space in decades.
4 min
It’s go time for the highest-stakes mission at NASA in more than 50 years.
On April 1, the agency is set to launch four astronauts around the moon, the deepest human spaceflight since the final Apollo lunar landing in 1972.
The launch window for Artemis II , as the mission is called, opens at 6:24 p.m. ET.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration teams have been preparing the vehicles to depart from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on the planned roughly 10-day trip. Crew members have trained for years for this moment.
Reid Wiseman, the NASA astronaut serving as mission commander, said he doesn’t fear taking the voyage. A widower, he does worry at times about what he is putting his daughters through.
“I could have a very comfortable life for them,” Wiseman said in an interview last September.
“But I’m also a human, and I see the spirit in their eyes that is burning in my soul too. And so we’ve just got to never stop going.”
Wiseman’s crewmates on Artemis II are NASA’s Victor Glover and Christina Koch, as well as Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.
What are the goals for Artemis II?
The biggest one: Safely fly the crew on vehicles that have never carried astronauts before.
The towering Space Launch System rocket has the job of lofting a vehicle called Orion into space and on its way to the moon.
Orion is designed to carry the crew around the moon and back. Myriad systems on the ship—life support, communications, navigation—will be tested with the astronauts on board.
SLS and Orion don’t have much flight experience. The vehicles last flew in 2022, when the agency completed its uncrewed Artemis I mission .
How is the mission expected to unfold?
Artemis II will begin when SLS takes off from a launchpad in Florida with Orion stacked on top of it.
The so-called upper stage of SLS will later separate from the main part of the rocket with Orion attached, and use its engine to set up the latter vehicle for a push to the moon.
After Orion separates from the upper stage, it will conduct what is called a translunar injection—the engine firing that commits Orion to soaring out to the moon. It will fly to the moon over the course of a few days and travel around its far side.
Orion will face a tough return home after speeding through space. As it hits Earth’s atmosphere, Orion will be flying at 25,000 miles an hour and face temperatures of 5,000 degrees as it slows down. The capsule is designed to land under parachutes in the Pacific Ocean, not far from San Diego.
Is it possible Artemis II will be delayed?
Yes.
For safety reasons, the agency won’t launch if certain tough weather conditions roll through the Cape Canaveral, Fla., area. Delays caused by technical problems are possible, too. NASA has other dates identified for the mission if it doesn’t begin April 1.
Who are the astronauts flying on Artemis II?
The crew will be led by Wiseman, a retired Navy pilot who completed military deployments before joining NASA’s astronaut corps. He traveled to the International Space Station in 2014.
Two other astronauts will represent NASA during the mission: Glover, an experienced Navy pilot, and Koch, who began her career as an electrical engineer for the agency and once spent a year at a research station in the South Pole. Both have traveled to the space station before.
Hansen is a military pilot who joined Canada’s astronaut corps in 2009. He will be making his first trip to space.
Koch’s participation in Artemis II will mark the first time a woman has flown beyond orbits near Earth. Glover and Hansen will be the first African-American and non-American astronauts, respectively, to do the same.
What will the astronauts do during the flight?
The astronauts will evaluate how Orion flies, practice emergency procedures and capture images of the far side of the moon for scientific and exploration purposes (they may become the first humans to see parts of the far side of the lunar surface). Health-tracking projects of the astronauts are designed to inform future missions.
Those efforts will play out in Orion’s crew module, which has about two minivans worth of living area.
On board, the astronauts will spend about 30 minutes a day exercising, using a device that allows them to do dead lifts, rowing and more. Sleep will come in eight-hour stretches in hammocks.
There is a custom-made warmer for meals, with beef brisket and veggie quiche on the menu.
Each astronaut is permitted two flavored beverages a day, including coffee. The crew will hold one hourlong shared meal each day.
The Universal Waste Management System—that’s the toilet—uses air flow to pull fluid and solid waste away into containers.
What happens after Artemis II?
Assuming it goes well, NASA will march on to Artemis III, scheduled for next year. During that operation, NASA plans to launch Orion with crew members on board and have the ship practice docking with lunar-lander vehicles that Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have been developing. The rendezvous operations will occur relatively close to Earth.
NASA hopes that its contractors and the agency itself are ready to attempt one or more lunar landing missions in 2028. Many current and former spaceflight officials are skeptical that timeline is feasible.
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