Jaunted

"Spirit Doesn't Want Customers to Pay $100 for a Bag at the Gate," they somehow managed to write through what were undoubtedly tears of laughter, because the idea is that people will do anything to avoid paying such a high fee. So the fee is so brutal not because they want to rake in money, but because they never want you to pay it. That argument is technically coherent but aggressively stupid. Because you know what's an even better way to avoid having travelers pay $100 for their bags at the gate? Don't charge them $100! Problem solved.

This is the equivalent of a hostage taker telling his victims "I don't want to have to shoot you." Agreed. But you know what's a really good way to make sure that doesn't happen? Just don't do it.

The sheer gall of this airline, which is justifiably disliked for its deeply hateable fees and its crass vulture advertising, has gone from surreal to bemusing to just kind of tiring. Even the addition of new fees like this one and others, and the publication of new unseemly ads, just seems kind of boring. Of course that's what they're doing. It's who they are.

The unfortunate kicker, of course, is that other airlines often explicitly follow Spirit's lead when it comes to baggage fees. So it's at least possible that other airlines will start imposing intentionally harsh punitive fees on their customers. If you think about it, that's what the travel world has been sorely missing: more treating travelers like they've committed some kind of crime.

Douchebags.

[Photo: A319321 / Wiki Commons]