You Want a Fee? I'll Give You A Fee...

Have you heard about the new rule proposed by the US Department of Transportation? If not, let me tell you. It is CRAZY! Get this: the DOT, headed by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, wants to implement a rule that if you pay a luggage fee for your checked bags and then those bags arrive late, the airline should refund you the fee. Crazy, right? I mean come on. You've paid a pretty nominal fee to have your bag put on a plane, now you're expecting that the airline is going to put it on the same plane that you're on? That your bag will actually arrive at the same location that you do? At the same time? That for a mere $25, the airline will actually keep you and your bag together? I'm sorry, but that is just crazy talk.

NOT!!!!

Listen up, airline industry. We have had ENOUGH. You have raised prices, instituted about 89 million fees that aren't included in the fare so we don't know how much our ticket is really going to cost, make us sit in tiny little seats designed for people who are 4'2" and have no arms, never leave on time, never arrive on time, charge us to change flights, make it impossible to use our precious frequent flyer miles without connecting in podunksville, charge us each different prices for the same damn flight, never tell us what's going on when our flight is delayed, routinely overbook flights so there is not enough room for all of us to get onto a flight that we all payed for, taken away meal service, taken away our peanuts, and even taken away those disgusting pillows and blankets that we only used because the air temperature on the plane is about 10 degrees below 0!

Last year you weren't able to get 2 million bags onto the same flight as its owner. 2 million!!! That question that they ask us at security, "Has your bag been out of your site at any time?" Our answer, "No. But once I give it to you, am I ever going to see it again?" How hard is it to get the bag onto the plane? When I arrive there, I have to walk through 15 security checkpoints, walk to the very end of the terminal because all those gates closest to the security checkpoint are only for show and don't ever get used by real passengers, and then sit and wait for the plane that was supposed to arrive an hour ago and still isn't on the ground yet. In all of that time, you still couldn't get my bag from the curb to the gate so that my bag and me are both on the same plane?

And you're really going to try to play the If-we-have-to-refund-the-fees-it-will-just-make-prices-higher-for-everyone card? Really? You know how you could avoid refunding the fees? STOP LOSING OUR F**KING BAGS!!! What the hell.

Mr. LaHood, it's not like you need my permission to implement any rule changes on the airlines. But in case you were wondering, you have my full support.

In you'd like more info, here's the full story on AP: Gov't wants airlines to repay fee after losing bag

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Post submitted to Adventures in Mommyhood Sunday Funday