Most air travellers travel with hold baggage pieces well within the allowed limits but many others travel with excess baggage - typically on international, long-haul flights. I haven’t done much detailed research on revenues from excess baggage charges but my guess is that they are substantial.

My idea is for a web-based system that allows passengers travelling on the same flight to trade their baggage allowances, particularly where the airline operates a “piece system” for baggage allowance. So assuming each passenger on a flight is allowed two pieces of luggage, if Person A has only one piece and Person B has two then Person A can ’sell’ her unused allowance to Person B. The system sends a file/message to the airline which then imports it into its reservation system, such that Person A’s allowance is reduced by one and Person B’s increased by one. Person B makes a monetary payment for the extra allowance. The payment is likely to be at a discount relative to payments made at the check-in desk. The payment is either shared by Person A and the airline/service provider; or the airline may reward Person A in kind, e.g. with air miles. Pricing may be fixed or be determined by a bidding process. This could be implemented as a stand-alone website serving multiple airlines or may be incorporated into an airline’s website.

What problems would a system like this solve?

• Payments made at check-in desks, for excess baggage charges contribute to check-in delays. Evidence of this can be found in the fact that many of the major airlines now offer passengers the ability to pay online for excess baggage and often offer a discount for doing so, suggesting that it is in the airlines’ interest for such payments to be made in advance.
• Air travel is usually stressful in its own right. For a passenger on the way to the airport, who has excess baggage and is aware of it, the uncertainty about how much of a delay and how much of a charge awaits tend to add to the this stress. Paying for excess baggage in advance makes for one less thing to worry about.
• Excess baggage payments at check-in desks require payment processing that could involve cash or credit card handling. Advance payment reduces the need for such processing and associated issues at the check-in desk.

What advantages does this model have over the current model?
Many airlines now offer passengers the ability to pay online for excess baggage and usually offer a discount for doing so. I call this existing method a “Passenger to Airline” (P2A) model because the passenger simply pays the airline for the privilege of carrying excess baggage. I like to think of my proposed model as a “Passenger to Passenger” (P2P) exchange model, because it involves two passengers exchanging baggage allowances. I think that my P2P model has the following advantages over the P2A model:

• It enables the airlines to reward passengers who travel light, which in turn increases loyalty. It is conceivable that a light traveller might opt to fly with one airline over another because one of them will reward him/her for travelling light.
• Rewarding passengers for travelling light will encourage more passengers to travel light, which presumably is desirable by the airlines.
• It is better than P2A in helping the airlines to predict flight baggage levels, which presumably helps them establish fuel requirements for flights. It is better at this than P2A because not only does the airline know in advance which passengers will travel with excess baggage, it also knows about some passengers who will not use up their baggage allowance.
• In the case where the system is incorporated within an airline’s website, it could attract more passengers to the airline’s website, which enhances the airline’s interaction with its passengers.

I guess the biggest problem for this idea would be getting the airlines to buy into it. My guess is it would take a big player like Sabre to make this sort of idea work, but who knows, a startup with the right connections might just be able to swing it - but would it be worth their while? What do you think?