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Jetstar has lowered the cost of checking in a bag at the airport as it prepares to introduce cabin baggage officers at the departure gate.
The six-month trial at Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Cairns and Gold Coast airports starts on Monday October 13, with the dedicated crew to monitor passengers’ carry-on luggage to ensure they are within weight and size limits.
The Qantas-owned low-cost carrier said it would reduce the fee for checking in a bag at the airport from $70 to $50 as part of the trial.
The fee reduction was similar to recent moves from low-cost competitor Tigerair Australia, which is currently offering a 40 per cent discount on baggage fees for passengers who exceeded their limits. The discount was first applied in September, when Tigerair announced increased monitoring of passengers’ carry-on luggage, and was in place for three months.
Jetstar said the 30 cabin baggage officers would help other staff focus on safe and secure boarding and help maintain the airline’s punctuality.
It was not about generating more revenue.
“We’ve introduced these roles and reduced the fee to help change customer behaviour,” a Jetstar spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Ultimately, every customer should be able to fly in comfort with their allocated amount of cabin baggage.
“We don’t want this fee to be a revenue stream for us as we’d prefer for our customers to understand and comply with our baggage policy.”
Jetstar allows passengers to take 10kg of carry-on luggage on Australian domestic flights, consisting of one main item and one other small item.
“Any piece of baggage that doesn’t fit with the requirements above will need to be checked-in and charges may apply,” the Jetstar website says.
Jetstar was one of the best airlines in terms of generating ancillary revenues, according to an IdeaWorks Company report published in July 2014. The report said Jetstar had 20.6 per cent of its total revenue come from ancillary revenue in 2013, the seventh highest among the 59 carriers surveyed.
John
says:Had this happen with AirAsia today in Phnom Penh . We checked in at the counter but when we moved to go thru to airside we and were stopped when showing our boarding card , along with others by the staff because the carry on looked marginal . We had to go back to Checkin and have the bag “approved ” and tag applied . It did . My only complaint was they saw it at checkin and could have checked it then . Other than that ,its about time Airlines cracked down . The overhead lockers can only take so much
Louise
says:Interesting idea as there’s never any room. I’m sick of having to put mine under the seat in front, eliminating leg room.Too
many people take big suitcases, carry on should be a carry bag you can carry with your hand, handbag or backpack.
Fergo
says:I see people march onto the aircraft (often they’re the last ones to board) carrying multiple large bags and then moaning that there’s no room in the overhead lockers. Such people are seriously annoying! They’re one of the reasons I make a conscious effort to board early.
However, the other reason that people prefer carry-on baggage is that queues at the Virgin and Jetstar check-in desks are abominable! You can wait for hours,never sure if you’ll have to run to get to your gate on time while some extended family of morons just ahead of you check in multiple bags, argue over weight allowances, re-pack their bags, etc and hold everybody up. And the wait for bags to appear on the carousel at the other end can seem interminable.
If the airlines are going to insist that we start checking bags in they’d better make sure ALL of their check-in desks are manned so that people are spared unconscionably extended queues! They need to put just a tad more effort into customer service: they’re stealing time that I shall never get back and I’m starting to REALLY resent it.
End of rant.