Continental Airlines to charge $15 for first checked bag from October 7

Continental Airlines, based in Houston, Texas, the United States, has decided to charge some passengers fee for checking in one bag at the airport.

The charge of $15, which takes effect from October 7, 2008, will apply to flights within the United States and between the United States and Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and Canada. 

Those exempt from the charge of $15 for checking one bag include frequent-flier customers, first-class and business-class flyers, customers travelling on full-fare economy-class tickets, and military personnel and their families travelling on official orders. 

Customers travelling to and from the Marshall Islands will not be affected by Continental Airlines’ new fee for the first checked bag on economy fare, according to the carrier’s station manager in Majuro, capital of the Marshall Islands. The new fee applies only to domestic customers and international passengers will not be charged. 

Continental Airlines, the fourth-largest airline in the United States based on revenue passenger miles, operates flights to destinations throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific regions. The carrier mainly operates from three hubs: Newark Liberty International Airport (in Newark, New Jersey), George Bush Intercontinental Airport (in Houston, Texas), and Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (in Cleveland, Ohio). Continental Micronesia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Continental Airlines, operates routes around Micronesia from its hub at Antonio B Won Pat International Airport on Guam and connects the Micronesian region with destinations in East Asia, South-east Asia, Honolulu and Cairns, Australia. 

Continental Airlines serves Dulles International Airport, located 25 miles west of the central business district of Washington, D.C., in Dulles, Virginia, as well Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, located in Linthicum, Maryland, about 10 miles south of Baltimore and 30 miles north of Washington, D.C. 

Now, Continental Airlines has become the 5th major airline to charge a fee for passengers’ first checked bag. 

American Airlines, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, the United States, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the AMR Corporation, was the first US-based carrier to charge for the first checked bag.  

American Airlines was followed, in charging for first checked bag, by the US-based United Airlines, a subsidiary of UAL Corporation; US Airways, the low-cost airline owned by US Airways Group and headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, the United States; and Northwest Airlines, Northwest Airlines, the principal subsidiary of Northwest Airlines Corporation and headquartered in Eagan, Minnesota, near Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport in the United States. 

Delta Air Lines, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the United States, is not yet charging passengers for their first checked bag.

According to aviation experts, Continental Airlines’ decision to add fee for a first checked bag is not surprising, taking in to account the competition among airlines, especially in the areas of fares and fees. 

Charging fee for bags is one of the ways by which airlines manage to increase their non-ticket revenue in the face of prohibitive rise in the prices of aviation turbine fuel.