It's a sign of the times. AA is no longer letting you check your bags for free, due to the insane cost of oil right now ($133/barrel!!!). Their costs this quarter rose over $660 million, or ~40%, vs. a 5% increase in revenue. So clearly their business can't survive without dropping costs (cutting routes and jobs) and raising revenue (slapping fees on you if you even so much as look at a AA employee).
To be honest, this is exactly what has to happen. It sucks, yes, but as a global society we've spent over a century isolated from the true costs of our actions; only now are those costs starting to get accounted for. Cheap and easy air travel is deadly for the environment. Try a carbon calculator somewhere and see for yourself... up your annual air travel and your carbon footprint skyrockets.
So the point is that air travel is a luxury, but for the last decade or more we haven't thought of it as such because costs have been externalized to the airlines and thus prices have been so low. And now prices are rising and fees are appearing out of the blue, and even though it totally sucks, that's more or less just the way it's got to be. :/ We'll all have to change our travel habits and make our trips much less frequent. Alas. Perhaps GE will develop some new electric turbine engine powered by on-board fuel cells or somesuch, and fuel costs will plummet. Until then, frivolous travel is likely off the table for us all.
To be honest, this is exactly what has to happen. It sucks, yes, but as a global society we've spent over a century isolated from the true costs of our actions; only now are those costs starting to get accounted for. Cheap and easy air travel is deadly for the environment. Try a carbon calculator somewhere and see for yourself... up your annual air travel and your carbon footprint skyrockets.
So the point is that air travel is a luxury, but for the last decade or more we haven't thought of it as such because costs have been externalized to the airlines and thus prices have been so low. And now prices are rising and fees are appearing out of the blue, and even though it totally sucks, that's more or less just the way it's got to be. :/ We'll all have to change our travel habits and make our trips much less frequent. Alas. Perhaps GE will develop some new electric turbine engine powered by on-board fuel cells or somesuch, and fuel costs will plummet. Until then, frivolous travel is likely off the table for us all.
1 comment:
so true. we've cancelled all of our trips for this summer except for the one to my brother's wedding. It's disappointing, but not a bad thing in the long run.
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