Yes, in practice this increases price transparency. Imagine everything could be monetized. They could charge for access to the bathroom, or water. What is the minimum expectation of what is included in the price of a ticket?
I'm against charging for bathrooms, water, or other such basic human needs while you are in the custody of the airline for the duration of travel. There should be a basic standard of human care that includes those things. Food should also be included for flights over 5-ish hours.
Carry-on fees are a whole another level of shittiness though. I, the customer, am the one carrying the bag, there should be no reason to charge for it.
It's like charging extra for wearing a red shirt or charging extra for wearing a hat.
> I, the customer, am the one carrying the bag, there should be no reason to charge for it.
It's on the plane, so it takes up some of the limited storage space, and increases the weight of the plane, which means more fuel burned.
Saying you carry the bag so there's no reason to charge for it is like saying you carry yourself onto the plane, so there's no reason to charge you for the flight ticket.
So either they build the average per-passenger cost into the price of every ticket, or they charge a fee only for people who want to take on the extra bag.
In practice, flights.google.com doesn't know the price of a luggage. So you might think a Easyjet/Ryanair ticket is cheaper, but I have had situations where actually after adding the luggage for every passenger the normal airline is €30 cheaper in total. And you get a free drink plus snack.
Honestly, it would be much better for transparency reasons if budget airlines offer a discount for no luggage instead of an extra fee.
I have incontinence, so I either wear diapers (still going to pee and defecate regardless), or I have access to the bathroom in time. If I wear diapers, there is going to be odor contamination in the area. It is bad for others, and for me, and their business too, I assume. Depends on the length of the trip; I try to limit fluid intake to zero before I go outside.
At peak season every year, O’Leary says something crazy like they are going to charge for the bathroom, or charge fat people extra, or get rid of arm rests, or have standing room only. The tabloids run the story, and always mention how cheap the flights are, including whatever the cheapest deal at the moment is.
It’s very, very obvious advertising. The tabloids go along with it because it makes people angry, which drives traffic.
Up until 1978 there was a lot more than this in the US. This is where we see photos of carts that brought prime rib to passengers and people in suits toasting with champaign glasses and there was so much space in the aisle that you could pass by service carts. It was like that because airlines were extremely regulated and not allowed to compete on price. So they competed on what was included. The result was photos of "a more civilized time" but also that almost nobody could afford to fly.
