But the requirements are different, and some say deficient, when it comes to checked bags.
That said, big, headline-grabbing deals between U.S. airlines could go the way of free checked bags.
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After a typical race, the number on those bibs is used to identify which checked bags belong to whom.
Southwest doesn't charge for the first two checked bags, but it has added and increased other fees such as priority boarding recently.
As Aviation Week explains, while charging for checked bags makes dollars and cents, it also costs airlines in customer satisfaction ratings.
The bundle combined the priority-boarding package it currently sells with its Economy Plus extra-legroom seating, two checked bags and additional frequent-flier miles.
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Tickets, which will include an increasingly-rare free seat assignment and two checked bags, could go on sale as soon as soon as this summer.
The Federal Aviation Administration declined to say how many checked bags are screened, but said the number has increased since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
In recent years the main hope for restoring airline profitability has been ancillaries: all those extra charges for meals, checked bags, less-cramped seats and the like.
Southwest, which doesn't charge fees for a passenger's first two checked bags, pushed its prices up faster than its competitors: Its yield jumped 35% over the same period.
But last year the revenue from checked bags for U.S. airlines fell for the first time, suggesting passengers were trying to avoid fees by packing light when they traveled.
Granted, we'd like to see in-flight WiFi offered on a few more of its flights (read: 100 percent of them), but hey, we'll take free checked bags and friendly employees any day of the week.
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After you find a fare, see if Southwest, which lists its fares only on its Southwest.com website, has a better deal (remember that Southwest doesn't charge for the first two checked bags, so you need to factor that in as well as the fare).
Since the start of 2010, the highest number of complaints -- 18, 196 -- related to damage claims for checked bags, problems for which airlines and the TSA share liability. (It's also the area that experienced the biggest decreases in recent complaint tallies.) In second place, at 10, 187, were complaints about treatment of personal property at security checkpoints.
In January, TSA officer Clayton Keith Dovel was accused of taking eight iPads from bags checked at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
Other passengers are complaining that the airline was unable, or unwilling, to retrieve bags checked in on flights that never departed.
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He had checked two more bags full of books, reading material, a Compaq computer and, implausibly, a dot-matrix printer for his Compaq computer.
India's Rapid Deployment Force manned roadblocks outside a number of airports, while guards patrolled among passengers, some of whom had their bags checked six times on domestic flights.
Workers, too, are monitored, their bags checked by sniffer dogs.
In the mornings, the multiple lines are long as people get their passes checked and check in any bags.
Doing so would encourage passengers to check their baggage so screwdrivers, knives and sports equipment can ride where they belong: in cargo holds inside checked and TSA-screened bags.
We only took with us what we could fit into four giant duffel bags that could be checked on the plane sweaters were a priority, summer-wear not so much.
Fewer passengers and hefty baggage fees reduced the volume of checked luggage, and so airlines lost fewer bags per passenger.
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The DOT says these fees and charges include checked, carry-on, oversized or overweight bags, meals, on-board entertainment, Internet access, pillows, blankets, premium coach seating, phone reservations, early boarding, ticket changes or cancellations, unaccompanied minors and pets.
In the United Kingdom, mobs of stranded passengers have begun to thin out, but people are still struggling to repack checked luggage after security officials banned all carry-on bags.
Yet increasingly, normal-sized garment bags are being deemed "oversized" and thus must be checked.
As the cartridges that inflate the bags are pressurised, they are not allowed onto aeroplanes flying within the US, even as checked luggage.
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