هزینه های باری، عملکرد عملیاتی و رضایت مشتری در صنعت حمل و نقل هوایی ایالات متحده  Baggage fees, operational performance and customer satisfaction in the US air transport industry

1. Introduction On May 21, 2008, American Airlines made an announcement that dramatically changed the revenue position of US airlines. American announced that as of June 15th, it would begin collecting a fee of $15 per checked bag.1 Although American Airlines was not the first US carrier to charge a fee for a first checked bag, it was the first “legacy carrier” to do so. The other major legacy carriers, United Airlines, US Airways, Northwest Airlines, Continental Airlines and Delta Airlines, quickly followed with baggage fees of their own. Within two years, the fees had been raised to the $20e$25 range for the first checked bag, with some carriers charging even more for a second checked bag (Barone et al., 2012). As a result, baggage fees as a percentage of US carrier operating income increased more than fourfold from 2007 to 2009 (Garrow et al., 2012). By 2010, US carriers were generating $3.4 billion annually in baggage fees, up from less than $500 million in the year before American’s initial announcement (Tuttle, 2012; US Government Accountability Office, 2010). Although the imposition of the baggage fees had a dramatic impact on US carrier revenues, this is not the focus of the paper. Our aim is, instead, to analyze the association between the fees, the operational performance of US carriers, and customer satisfaction with their airline experience. As Michael O’Leary, the CEO of Ryanair, has stated (quoted in Allon et al., 2011, pp. 2e3): “[P]aying for checked-in bags … wasn’t about getting revenue. It was about persuading people to change their travel behavior e to travel with carry-on luggage only … This helps us significantly lower airport and handling costs.” In particular, we examine the association between the baggage fees and the rate of mishandled baggage reports, the percentage of delayed flights, and the rate of airline customer complaints. If the baggage fees discourage passengers from checking their bags, then they should be associated with fewer mishandled baggage reports. Indeed, the US Government Accountability Office (2012) reports a steady decline in the number of mishandled baggage reports beginning in 2008. We examine the association between the imposition of baggage fees and the number of mishandled baggage reports per 1000 passengers.