In case you needed yet another incentive to cram all your travel items into a carry-on, Delta Airlines just boosted the cost of your first checked bag by 17%. The increase adds $5 to the previous, and not-exactly-insignificant, $30 fee for domestic flights.
Delta is the third major U.S. carrier to hike bag fees in the past several weeks. Its move follows similar increases that American Airlines and United Airlines announced in February, three days apart; those high fees themselves followed fee hikes by smaller carriers Alaska Airlines and JetBlue Airways. Major U.S. carriers often copy one another’s pricing changes, a move that behavior analysts sometimes refer to as herd instinct.
Delta said Tuesday that the first bag checked on a domestic flight will now incur a $35 fee. The charge for a second bag rose from $40 to $45.
Delta last raised bag fees for domestic flights in 2018. The airline said the increase will help it keep up with unspecified rising industry costs. Customers with status perks can still check their first bag for free; those with first class tickets can check two free bags.
Bag fees have become a dependable source of revenue for airlines since American introduced them in 2008, when jet fuel prices were surging. In 2022, the last full year for which statistics are available, U.S. airlines took in $6.8 billion in checked-bag fees, led by American at $1.4 billion and United at $1.1 billion. Delta was in third place with $979.4 million.
Target will no longer accept personal checks from shoppers as of July 15 in a sign of how a once ubiquitous payment method is going the way of the dodo.
A Delaware judge is considering a massive and unprecedented fee request by lawyers who successfully voided a pay package for Tesla CEO Elon Musk
The Bank of America Institute found that average monthly rent payment growth for the bank's small business clients rose 12% year-on-year.
A driverless ride-hailing car in China hit a pedestrian, but people on social media are taking the carmaker’s side in an AI vs. humans debate.
The Federal Reserve faces a cooling job market as well as persistently high prices, Chair Jerome Powell said in a possible sign of looming rate cuts.
America’s oldest flour company, King Arthur Baking Co., saw a six-fold increase in demand during the pandemic, and baking interest continues to rise.
The surgeon general has said there's a loneliness epidemic in America. For many people, that includes a lack of friendships at work. But there's hope!
The housing market shows few signs of busting out of its three-year funk after a disappointing spring season and amid a gloomy outlook for the summer and f
The entertainment giant Paramount will merge with Skydance, closing out a decades-long run by the Redstone family in Hollywood and injecting cash.
For 30 years Ira Galtman’s job has been to document how American Express went from an express stagecoach company in New York in 1850, to what it is today.
