JetBlue Hikes Bag Fees Once Again, Adds Peak Pricing

JetBlue Hikes Bag Fees Once Again

Just weeks after it increased checked bag fees, JetBlue is once again looing to squeeze a few more dollars out of customers flying during peak travel dates.

Airlines have long used dynamic pricing when it comes to tickets. If you want to fly to a popular beach destination during the summer for example, you will pay substantially more in the summer than in winter months. However, that dynamic pricing has not applied to extras such as baggage fees. Until now!

JetBlue is changing that by using peak and off-peak prices for checked bags. If you are traveling on peak dates, you will pay an extra $10, which means that bags can cost up to $70.

Here’s the chart for bookings more than 24 hours before departure:

And within 24 hours of departure:

Raising bag fees instead of ticket prices makes a lot of sense for airlines. Domestic airfares are subject to a 7.5% federal excise tax, but that tax doesn’t apply to fees such as those charged for checked bags. So an airline can save $75 million in tax fees off its $1 billion revenue in domestic checked-bag fees.

And bag fees are big business. In 2022, for example, airlines collected $6.8 billion in baggage fees, according to the Department of Transportation. That figure was up 17% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019 and double from a decade ago.

It also makes sense to give customers a discount for paying for checked bags in advance. Passengers can possibly pay for more bags that they actually check in and the airline will pocket that money.