American Airlines and Virgin American, vive la difference

At the Incentive magazine Seventh Annual Industry Roundtable, which took place about two weeks ago, the discussion turned, at one point, to the new fee some airlines are charging to check a second bag. [You'll see excerpts in the June issue, and a full transcript online shortly.]

Brian Martenis, a long-time corporate travel planner who recently became managing director of Incentive Worldwide Travel, a new division of Philadelphia–based Gil Travel Tours, commented: “I don't know what we will do now with the $25 fee U.S. Air [recently announced] for the second checked bag. I mean, it's been two check bags forever… You know, that’s kind of crummy.”

So how happy will incentive planners be to hear today’s announcement from American Airlines that it will soon start charging passengers $15 to check the first bag and $25 to check a second (and $100 for each of the next three, and $200 after that)?

Not very is my guess. While American’s chief executive whinged about market condition in announcing the new charges to stockholders, according to the New York Times, he apparently didn’t say anything about just raising ticket prices instead of nickel-and-diming customers. Of course, he can’t, because low-cost airlines are eating the traditional carriers’ lunch.

Which brings me to the flights I recently took on a brand new airline, Virgin America, from New York to Los Angeles and back. A sister company to Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America is a product of the new open skies agreement between the U.S. and EU. Yes, I was charged for a meal—about six bucks for a fairly good cobb salad wrap and two bucks for high-end chips—and movies were nearly eight bucks. But, they were current movies, on a 9-inch seatback screen, and live TV, music, music videos and video games were free. There are also power plugs—real, home-style, three-prong ones—at every seat. And those seats have 32 inches of legroom and are 19.7 inches wide. That’s not a typo. The seats are 19.7 inches wide in economy! Few other airlines break 17 inches, and many competitors’ business class seats are narrower.

So American Airlines vs. Virgin America. Guess which I’ll be flying whenever possible.