No meals - Reduced baggage allowance! - Are Airlines Treating Passengers Unfairly?

Air travel seems to have changed for the worse in the past few years. While increased security checks are understandable and necessary after 9/11.

The joy of airplane travel has in my opinion deteriorated to a point that if there was an alternative, many airplane passengers today may perhaps choose not to fly.

Services that airlines provided to passengers seem to be declining gradually. Most airlines have now cut down on basic things like snacks and meals on many of their flights.

Airlines of course want us to believe that they are doing all this for the price conscious customers. I wonder how much of these savings are being passed on to their customers?

Consider the following:

√ Now some airlines are offering to knock off $5 from your ticket if you don’t have carry on baggage.

√ I took a trip to India from Toronto about two months back. While in the past two bags each weighing up to 70 pounds were allowed for passengers traveling to India from North America. The present free baggage allowance has been reduced by 40 pounds per passenger. Instead of up to 70 pounds per bag, it is 50 pounds per bag.

√ Approximately 250 passengers and the reduced baggage weight add up to 10,000 lbs of less weight which I would assume means considerable fuel savings for airlines. How much of this is passed on to the passengers?

√ Some airlines are encouraging passengers to print their own boarding passes from their home computers.

√ On May 12, 2007 before my scheduled flight from Toronto to Seattle I received an email from my airline informing me that I could print my boarding pass. Of course the airlines are doing all this for our convenience.

I wonder how much money the airlines are saving on printing paper and toner costs for printers as passengers start printing their own boarding passes.

√ Some airlines are encouraging passengers to check in from their home computers. Of course they say its
only to save time at the airport and for the passengers own convenience.

As more and more passenger’s pre-check themselves before going to the airport, then who needs the airline clerk to check passengers in. Wonder if this is saving the airlines some money?

√ Meals on short haul flights are of course a thing of the past.

What I am surprised is that the criteria of short haul appears to have been changed to cover flights that are lasting almost five hours.

For my Seattle flight I arrived at the airport a couple of hours before the scheduled four and a half hour flight. The flight was delayed by about 25 minutes. No free meal was provided. Even the traditional pack of peanuts and soft drinks were not served after take off.

The airline sold sandwiches and snacks for $2 and $5. Before the trolley even reached my seat on row 25 all hot sandwiches were sold out. Passengers seated in the back of airplanes usually have no choice but to accept whatever is available.

Perhaps passengers seated on the tail end of the airplane, especially the last two rows deserve a discount because I have seen this happen many times.

What I find strange is that even though the airlines are cutting off all the frills to save us money on our fares. I am paying more for my travels compared to what I paid some time back when meals were indeed provided and my baggage allowance was much higher than what it is today.   

In the last two months I have made trips from Toronto, Canada to New Delhi-India. Travelled within India by air on local Indian airplanes and presently as I write this am in Seattle USA. On all these flights I found the planes full.  Yet airlines despite having full flights and the so called frills to passengers cut down to the bone claim to be losing money.  

Are airlines in some way forming a monopoly leaving the customers no choice but to accept what is in the market? I wonder who is speaking for the common passengers? Unless passengers speak up they can continue to expect less for their travel dollars and suffer with inferior service.

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