It could be because I'm rundown, fighting a cold and fever, and therefore have less patience and zero mind-to-keyboard filter. Or, it could be because this is one of the more messed up lines of thinking and business plans that I've ever come across. Either way, what I'd like to know is what in the name of actually getting people to travel is the airline industry thinking?

No, I'm not talking about the fee for a second checked bag - that's old news. It's the fee for the FIRST checked bag proposed by American Airlines that has me going jigga-wha?

Yes, I realize the ever-skyrocketing cost of fuel has hurt the industry badly. It's hurt just about every industry. But in an economy where the ripple effect of fuel costs has been less disposable income because of it costing more to fill up your car, higher heating costs (if you use gas heat), higher food prices probably because of transportation costs (and, of course, droughts), higher public transportation costs, and other current economic factors such as the number of people having to sell or foreclose on their homes, do they honestly think adding yet ANOTHER fee on top of all the others is really going to ENCOURAGE people to fly?

Admittedly, I'm far from a number cruncher, so I could be speaking out of turn. Still, in the long run, don't you think this will just discourage people from travelling? Already, there's so much that can't be taken in a carry-on bag. And hey, they've reduced the number of those that can be taken on board too. Maybe we should just start sending our luggage to our travel destinations by overnight courier. Eventually, I'm sure it will be a cheaper alternative.

So let's think about the effect of discouraging people from travelling, shall we? While the business travellers will still travel, how about the leisure travellers? How about family vacations? Not only could the ever-mounting fees piling up dissaude families from travelling, or cause them to travel less, but they could also prevent those who do travel from partaking in what goes hand-in-hand with tourist attractions: buying memorabilia. Why? Because they're going to need to add a whole lot more to the sticker price of souvenirs just to get them back home.

So there we have one ripple effect: less people travelling to tourist destinations, so less $$ for the airlines, less $$ for the hotel, restaurant, and related services industry, less $$ spent in these cities, and there we go, another dig at the economy.

How about at the airlines themselves? Already the number of flights are being reduced. Less office staff, less ticket counter staff, less airport staff, less ground crew, and so on we go, down the line. With less people booking flights, what about travel agents?

You can probably see where I'm going with this. And sure, maybe my outlook is a little extreme. But before we start offloading more user fees onto people and sing its praises because it's not actually a tax (coughahemshadesofCanadacoughahem), let's think this through. Do you want people travelling, or do you want a whole lot of empty seats on the flights you're still offering?

So I'm going to issue a challenge to the rest of the airlines remaining out there. Don't be sheep in the barnyard parade that seems to inevitably happen whenever one airline comes up with some way of extracting more cash from a vein tapped so often it's just about ready to collapse. Otherwise, you might find that the rest of us are perfectly happy to stay right here at home.