Checked bag fees, which have become common with U.S. airlines, are now beginning to move to European airlines, according to NBC News.
Most European and Asian airlines have not charged bag fees, while, during the last five years, those fees have become commonplace in the U.S., along with European low coast carriers, such as Ryanair and easyJet.
Earlier in the year, Air France, KLM and British Airways introduced bag fees within Europe. Last month, India began preparing to introduce the fees as well.
Indian airlines, including Air India and Jet Airways, will have more regulation to their baggage fees, with the requirement that they are dynamic fees, requiring the airlines to be upfront about fixed fees.
IdeaWorks Co., which watches airline revenue, views the new fees as positive, as the airline industry makes most of their profit from ancillary revenue, otherwise known as extra fees.
"It's rather like green shoots poking through a melting blanket of snow," the report reads.
According to IdeaWorks, the 10 largest U.S. airlines have seen a 650 percent increase in checked bag fees in 2012, to $3.3 billion, compared with revenue from fees in 2007.
The fees have resulted in fewer passengers checking bags, which means fewer bags for airlines to lose, leading to a decrease in mishandled baggage complaints, with a decline from 7.03 per 1,000 passengers in 2007 to 2.97 per 1,000 passengers in 2012, according to the Department of Transportation.
The increase in various fees from airlines has even led to fees for carry-on bags for some airlines. Among the airlines to add this fee are Alaska Airlines, who introduced the fee in 2009, Frontier Airlines, which introduced a carry-on fee of somewhere between $20 to $100 per bag, Spirit Airlines and Allegiant airlines.
Many of the airlines have caused confusion with passengers when the carry-on fees were introduced, and the report warns of a passenger rebellion if the airlines don't learn from their mistakes with customer service.
However, short of that rebellion, there is a good chance that carry-on bag fees will be introduced by European carriers soon as well.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
