I’ve often wondered about this during air travel. When you see the enormous expense that many airports have gone to to provide electronic tracking and movement of luggage, why are we reverting back? Surely there has to be a cost to this?

The Freakanomics team say that the luggage fees passed on to customers are equal to one half the profit of the airline industry, but the expense is passed to society in many different ways, it’s an airline subsidiary really.

Freakonomics » The Absurdity of U.S. Air Travel: Baggage Fees.