Hawaiian Airlines collects $14.3 million in baggage fees

Those $25 baggage fees are turning into millions of dollars for Hawaiian Airlines and other carriers.

The state’s largest carrier pocketed $14.3 million from checked luggage in the second quarter — up 5.8 percent from the same period a year ago — and put Hawaiian on pace to collect its highest yearly total ever, according to data Thursday from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Hawaiian, which collected $13.5 million in the first quarter, rang up $27.8 million through the first six months and likely will exceed the record $54 million it collected in 2010. In the second quarter of 2010, Hawaiian brought in $13.5 million from baggage fees — roughly the same as this year’s first quarter — when it offered fewer flights than it does now.

"Most of the other airlines on a percentage basis have gone up even more on less capacity," said airline analyst Bob Mann, president of Port Washington, N.Y.-based R.W. Mann & Co.

In addition, Hawaiian collected $4.5 million in reservation cancellation/change fees in the second quarter, matching the first quarter of this year and slightly down from $4.6 million in the second quarter of 2010.

Keoni Wagner, spokesman for Hawaiian, said that the baggage fees for Hawaiian and the rest of the industry often have been the difference between profit and loss.

Hawaiian, which lost $50 million in the second quarter to end a three-year string of quarterly profits, bounced back in the third quarter to earn $25.6 million.

Altogether, U.S. airlines collected $1.5 billion from baggage fees and reservation change fees in the second quarter, up 1 percent from the same period last year and up 8.5 percent from the first three months of this year, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics said.

The airlines received $887 million from baggage fees and $612 million from reservation change fees.

Mann said the theory behind the fees is that they permit carriers to keep base fares lower and charge for those services that only a portion of their customers choose to use.

"Now looking at Hawaii as a destination, a lot of people would be planning to take more than a briefcase, so it seems a little opportunistic," he said.

"But the key issue is you have some airlines that have lowered their base fares and you have others who have made no attempt to change base fares and charge additionally for services that used to be included in the base fares.

"I don’t know where Hawaiian falls in that spectrum, but I applaud the ones who make an effort to reduce their base fares in respect of services no longer provided for free. In that case I have no objection for them choosing to restore those services for customers who find them of value."