"Primarily: checked baggage exists as a system to get baggage out of the cramped main cabin and into simpler, dedicated storage with marginal and reasonably efficient load/unload times. By charging fees for any checked baggage (as opposed to excessive checked baggage as used to be the regime), the airlines incentivize a lot more people to try to cram every thing they can carry on into the main cabin."
So Frontier, Spirit, and now the "Basic Economy" fares charge even more for cabin bags than for checked bags. Problem solved.
One theory I heard about the checked bag fees (back when carry-on bags were no extra charge) was that the fee freed up cargo space so the airline could carry more paid air cargo, purposefully pushing baggage into the main cabin.
«So Frontier, Spirit, and now the "Basic Economy" fares charge even more for cabin bags than for checked bags. Problem solved.»
Because no one ever travels with baggage? You can argue its "price transparency", but forcing something everyone needs to be an "add-on" is awfully shady.
«One theory I heard about the checked bag fees (back when carry-on bags were no extra charge) was that the fee freed up cargo space so the airline could carry more paid air cargo, purposefully pushing baggage into the main cabin.»
The other theory I've heard is that "unbundling" a lot of these fees and moving them to being charged at checkin and/or the gate has meant that traditional travel agents and corporate booking can't touch or negotiate them (because they aren't direct flight costs anymore). Given most corporate expense systems don't allow for reporting "add-on fees" at an airport (and it took a while for any corporate execs to catch up to a possible need to add baggage fees as an expense that could/should be reported; many companies still seem to have yet to notice), this was a good way for the airlines to increase flight costs across the board without immediately upsetting fat cat corporate clients and choice travel agents by sneakily passing the cost difference directly to employees/flyers who at that point were a "captive audience" to the new fees.
So Frontier, Spirit, and now the "Basic Economy" fares charge even more for cabin bags than for checked bags. Problem solved.
One theory I heard about the checked bag fees (back when carry-on bags were no extra charge) was that the fee freed up cargo space so the airline could carry more paid air cargo, purposefully pushing baggage into the main cabin.