Airline fees: Everybody's doing it so why not?

Did your mother ever tell you, "Just because everybody's doing it doesn't make it right" ? Some of us don't mind paying "a la carte" fees for airline services and amenities that were once included in the fare. But best I can tell, many of my readers do mind.

In the last few days, several articles have noted that there's a new fee at United and US Airways for paying the first-checked-bag fee at the airport instead of online beforehand. Actually, that information was posted here twice, April 23 and May 18.

You can see what I posted May 18 by looking at the bottom of the first page of the blog, choosing page 6 and looking at the last item. That post received an usually high nine comments from those who don't like the fees.

Here's the best of the recent articles I've seen about customers' and airlines' opinions of fees.