[Tom Otley]

Readers will have seen Alex McWhirter’s piece on Air France and its promotional Hand Baggage Only (HBO) fares

Air France trials transatlantic HBO fares

As Alex asks in the piece…

“So the big question now is when, rather than if, British Airways and American Airlines (who operate a JV) will follow suit.”

[canucklad]

I’m incredibly sceptical when it comes to these fares.
To me it’s all smoke and mirrors

My experience of BA’s HBO fares suggests that the airline is not creating a saving for the customer, but are in practice placing a restriction on where currently one doesn’t exist.

And as a consequence, have compounded the issue of too much carry-on luggage in the cabin.
An issue that irritates the hell out of me and others who contribute to this forum.
If I had a pound for every time I hear the volunteer to put in the hold announcement I’d own a Caribbean island and grow a beard.

Interestingly, I’d love to find out how much and what mechanisms the handling agents charge the legacy airlines for loading and unloading aircraft.

[capetonianm]

It’s not just BA. I travel mostly on EZY for my shorthaul. We pay £200 a year each for the EZY+ plus cards and I usually pay for a checked bag, although I sometimes don’t have one.

The cabin baggage allowance is rarely properly or consistently enforced and the bins over the front row seats are often filled by selfish oafs and oafesses who then move further down the aircraft, leaving people who have paid for front rows seats to deal with the problem. This causes problems both on boarding and leaving the aircraft.

I have no problem with HBO only fares as long as the HB rules are enforced vigorously.

[stevescoots]

I just view it as an excuse to hike the price of fares with hold luggage over time

[openfly]

Nothing new as BA have been offering long-haul ex-US Club/Y HBO fares for years. As witnessed by the constant stream of massive amounts of hand-baggage….suitcase size…on these flights!!

[AMcWhirter]

openfly – We aren’t aware of these HBO fares ex-USA with BA. Perhaps they are a special rate offered only to corporates ?

I have searched BA’s USA site (for JFK-LHR-JFK flights this month) and can find no trace of HBO fares.

Of course I could be wrong but I was using BA’s public website for J/Y classes.

[Tom Otley]

More news on HBO fares

Alitalia follows with transatlantic Hand Baggage Only fares

[Alex McWhirter]

Virgin Atlantic announced HBO tariffs today.

It can only be a matter of time before United and the Lufthansa Group carriers follow.

Lufthansa is already quietly offering HBO fares on transatlantic routes ex-Scandinavia (but not in its home country yet).

Virgin Atlantic introduces hand baggage only fares

[PeterCoultas]

As someone who has flown handbag only on long haul many times this is just too late for me to feel especially pleased….will be much happier with the airlines when I can buy return tickets with economy fares one way and decent bed (business) fares the other….until then I treat all airlines as cartels that have no ones int4rest than their own…

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=845473]openfly – We aren’t aware of these HBO fares ex-USA with BA. Perhaps they are a special rate offered only to corporates ?

I have searched BA’s USA site (for JFK-LHR-JFK flights this month) and can find no trace of HBO fares.

Of course I could be wrong but I was using BA’s public website for J/Y classes.[/quote]

I think you’ve been the victim of irony 🙂

[Tom Otley]

I wonder how the overhead lockers will cope with it all?

Or will it as with the LCCs where they are then offering to check your hand baggage for free once they have sold too many of these HBO tickets?

[canucklad]

Actually Tom, I think the airlines have got this HBO model totally wrong !1

And I’m surprised their (airlines) greed gene hasn’t kicked in…..
I’m so irked at the selfishness of people and how they grab space in a manner that would make a Panzer commander proud that I would actually charge people for taking a 2nd bag on-board.

As I said earlier, if airlines require volunteers to be inconvenienced at the gate, then surely they can organise to take everybody’s offending bags off, and then set a levy for those who don’t want to wait around at the baggage belt

I see no saving advantage on HBO fares, just a mechanism to con people!

[Cedric_Statherby]

Canucklad

You and I are in total agreement on this. I simply cannot understand why they still allow people to use the more convenient but strictly limited cabin luggage space for free while charging for the less convenient but largely underutilised hold space. The obvious result is that people over-use and try to abuse the free option, causing delays for all, inconvenience for all, potential conflicts with the gate staff and stupid appeals for people to put stuff in the hold free (itself an strong incentive not to check stuff in).

Business economics 1-0-1 says that if you have two offerings for your baggage service and

Offering A is more convenient than offering B;
Offering A is more secure than offering B;
Offering A is quicker than offering B at the arrival end; AND on top of all that
Offering A is in shorter supply than offering B

then you really must charge more for A than B. Or you will find the demand for A exceeds the available supply, and your revenue will fall.

Quiz for the reader: which is offering A and which is offering B? Clue: offering A does not involve baggage reclaim carousels ….

People who run airlines are intelligent. Which part of this basic business logic do they not understand?

[JPNU]

[quote quote=856288]Canucklad
then you really must charge more for A than B. Or you will find the demand for A exceeds the available supply, and your revenue will fall.

Quiz for the reader: which is offering A and which is offering B? Clue: offering A does not involve baggage reclaim carousels ….

People who run airlines are intelligent. Which part of this basic business logic do they not understand?[/quote]

Cedric and Canucklad, please don’t give them any ideas!!!

[capetonianm]

I simply cannot understand why they still allow people to use the more convenient but strictly limited cabin luggage space for free while charging for the less convenient but largely underutilised hold space.

The CBBG option has been grossly abused and policy is poorly enforced. A huge pain all round. Airlines probably ought to charge for CBBG above a basic minimum size, but I am not sure that would solve the problem as some people would happily pay and all that the charge would achieve is more revenue for the airline without necessarily reducing the amount of CBBG, since most people (I imagine) would rather pay a fee for CBBG than for hold baggage for the various benefits outline above by Cedric Statherby.

The charge for hold baggage is simply passing on to the passenger the cost to the carrier of baggage handling at airports at origin, transit, and destination, insurance, and so on. This is quite substantial.

[Author]

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