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Is it ethical for airlines to charge extra for checked luggage?
By Lauren | May 25, 2008
American Airlines hit the news this week when it announced that it would charge $15 for passengers to check a bag. The airline blamed the skyrocketing costs of fuel to justify the decision, explaining that it had to do something to keep airfares in check. By doing so, American Airlines raised some interesting ethical issues.
Ethics are about doing “the right thing” as most people understand it: keeping promises, being honest and fair, and so forth. So, is it “the right thing” to charge passengers different prices for the same flight? Is it “the right thing” to quote a customer a price for an airline ticket, then tack on additional surcharges so that the whole flight costs more than the customer expected? Is it “the right thing” to pressure passengers to cram still more luggage into already overcrowded cabin luggage bins, creating a potential safety hazard when the bins are opened? If it costs about the same amount of money to fly from Point A to Point B whether your passengers checked bags or not, is it “the right thing” to ask certain customers to pay more than their share of the total cost of the flight? Then again, if checked luggage weighs down a plane so it costs more to fly it, is it “the right thing” to ask the passengers who contributed to that extra weight to pay for their portion of it? What about passengers who board with carry-on luggage but can’t find space in the overhead bins – would it be “the right thing” to charge those passengers the $15 fee and force them to check their luggage? If you think the airline should make an exception to its surcharge for those passengers because it failed to provide adequate overhead storage, would it be the “right thing” to make other passengers continue to pay the surcharge simply because they checked their bags at the airport?
American Airlines’ decision raises an interesting legal issue, too. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit just ordered the Secretary of the Treasury to redesign America’s paper currency so that the visually-impaired aren’t forced either to rely upon the kindness of others or to purchase expensive scanning equipment to determine the difference between a one-dollar and a fifty-dollar bill. If disabled passengers are forced either to rely upon the kindness of fellow passengers to stow their luggage or to pay a surcharge to check their bags, shouldn’t the same principles apply?
As airlines struggle to keep their planes in the air and their businesses in the black, I predict that you’ll see a lot more of these special charges imposed. If passengers must fly, they’ll pay the charges because they’ll have no choice. The airlines are thinking about the bottom line, but are they thinking about the ethics behind their decisions? I doubt it.
Topics: Business Ethics |