The days of free luggage on flights may be numbered. This is from the Baltimore Sun today:

United Airlines will begin charging some passengers $50 to check a second piece of luggage on domestic round-trip flights, becoming the first big carrier to impose a fee for a service that has long been included in the price of a ticket.”

In fact, Dow-Jones’ Market Watch had a similar story yesterday, but reported that United’s fee for a second piece would be only $25. According to Market Watch, airline consultant Terry Trippler said:

They are the first, but they certainly won’t be the last. The airlines are looking for every possible revenue source they can find and still cut fares without cutting wages, because right now they can’t go any lower.”

Note that they’re not talking about charging for an extra carry-on piece here. They are charging for an additional piece of checked luggage, which has pretty big implications for air travelers.

This is no doubt another turning point in the US airline industry and will be copied by most major carriers, starting with the domestic ones and spreading outward from there. How passengers will adjust is the open question, but this development will certainly cause a shake-up in air travel.

I had never had a reason or urge to visit Bali, but recently fate and circumstance allowed me to do just that. A package deal from EVA Airlines (Taiwan’s safest airline) made this part of Indonesia impossible to resist. Roundtrip airfares during Bali’s dry season, which runs from May til September, can be had for about $2,800 from Los Angeles (though fares drop as the rainy season approaches). The five hour flight from Taipei to Bali’s Denpasar Airport was efficient and non-eventful. Upon arrival, we lined up to purchase our landing visas. (Note carefully your length of stay, or else you will be fined when you try to depart!). Once outside, we were greeted by mild temperatures, low humidity, and our driver, who took us to the Patra Bali.

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The British are rightly proud of their currency. So proud, in fact, that while the UK is one of the linchpins of the European Union, it has steadfastly refused to become a member of the so-called “Eurozone” – the group of countries that use the euro. Some recent entrants to the EU, like Hungary, have adopted the euro in fits and starts. In Hungary, the old national currency, the forint, still circulates side-by-side the euro. Even countries as remote and poor as Romania and Bulgaria may soon adopt the euro.

Great Britain, however, remains the great outlier in so many things. The British drive on the left with steering wheels on the right, have an unwritten constitution, think Kylie Minogue is entertaining, and hold resolutely to the venerable old pound, or as people in posh financial circles like to call it, “sterling”. Continue Reading…