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Sunday, April 26, 2009

Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum XI

US Airways will begin charging an extra five dollars a bag for passengers who don’t go on-line to check-in and prepay for checked luggage. The fee will be in addition to the $15 for the first checked bag and $25 for the second that US Airways already charges. The extra per bag fee will be assessed to passengers who pay to check their bags at the airport beginning July 9.

Perhaps the new fee is being put into place to make up for the revenue lost from US Airways’ ill-advised foray into charging for non-alcoholic beverages. On March 1, the airline dropped its unpopular two dollar charge for soft drinks and one dollar charge for coffee and tea. As no other airline had copied the idea, US Airways realized that the fees had become a competitive disadvantage.

Not so incidentally, last week, the carrier posted a first-quarter net loss of $103 million, or 90 cents a share.

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