AirTran Airways to charge $15 for first checked bag

AirTran Airways, the low-cost airline headquartered in Orlando, Florida, the United States, has decided to charge a fee of $15 for the first checked bag.

AirTran, which provides service out of Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas, the United States, said in a statement that the new fee for the first checked bag would come into effect on December 5, 2008.

However, customers who bought tickets on or before November 11, 2008, will not be charged for their first checked bag.

The airline will continue to charge $25 for a second checked bag and $50 for each additional bag.

Business-class travelers and A+ Rewards Elite-members will be exempt from the charges for the first checked bag and will continue to be exempt from fees for the second checked bag.

AirTran Airways, a subsidiary of AirTran Holdings, operates over 750 daily flights throughout the eastern United States and the US Midwest, including over 270 daily departures from Atlanta, Georgia. AirTran’s principal hub is at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta and it maintains a secondary hub at Orlando International Airport in Florida.

The Atlanta-based newspaper Atlanta Journal Constitution quoted a spokesman of AirTran Airways as remarking on the new fees for the first checked bag: “We need all the revenue we can get. AirTran expects to generate a significant amount of money from the new fees.”

Delta Air Lines, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the United States, and which recently merged with the US-based Northwest Airlines, has already decided to charge $15 for the first checked bag.

The spokesman for AirTran Airways said that AirTran would not have charged fees for the first bag if Delta had not done so.

Bob Fornaro, chairman, president, and chief executive officer of AirTran Airways, said in the company’s statement: “Our company couldn’t be charging more than its main competitor in Atlanta. We don’t think we want to be in a position to be out there alone, when a competitor who we compete with on two-thirds of our non-stop flights and probably 80% to 90% of our revenue is not doing the same thing. So, I’m not saying we won’t do it, but at this point I think we would prefer to be a follower in a situation rather than a leader right now.”

Delta, which had been charging a fee of $50 for the second bag but nothing for the first bag, had announced a week that the carrier was adopting the fee structure of its merger partner, Northwest Airlines, which had been charging $15 for the first checked bag and $25 for the second checked bag.