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Marce Edwards is the business editor. She has been at The News Tribune for seven years and has written about technology and big businesses in the South Sound including Weyerhaeuser and Russell. Before moving to Tacoma, she worked at The Idaho Statesman in Boise. She is a Northwest native who likes to garden and refuses to use an umbrella. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and two kids.
C.R. Roberts is a Tacoma native. Before joining The News Tribune, he worked as a freelance writer and part-time cowhand on a cattle ranch in Northern Idaho. He writes about small business, personal finance and other business issues.
John Gillie writes about the aerospace and airline industries, commercial development and consumer issues. During his 30-year-tenure at The News Tribune he has covered issues as diverse as the Native American fishing rights disputes, crime and the courts, the wood products industry and energy. He lived in Tacoma with his family for 25 years, but now lives in Kent because his wife heads a five-state non-profit foundation headquartered in Ballard, and it only seemed a sensible compromise to make considering their workplaces are 40 miles apart.
Kelly Kearsley has been a business reporter at The News Tribune since 2005. She covers the Port of Tacoma and international trade. Being born and raised in Spokane she’s used to living in cities with inferiority complexes and, in fact, prefers it. Prior to working at The News Tribune, she spent three years as a reporter for The Bulletin in Bend, Oregon and another year working stints for The Associated Press and Seattle Times. She graduated from Pacific Lutheran University. She lives in Tacoma with her husband and miniature schnauzer.
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Airline travel just got more expensive on the nation's largest airline, American.
The Fort Worth-based carrier announced today it will begin charging a $15 fee for the first checked bag except for elite frequent fliers, first class passengers and those paying full coach fare. The change will take effect in mid-June.
That fee comes on top of the $25 fee American and most other carriers already charge for the second checked bag.
The new fee, if it is copied across the industry, may prove to be the kind of backdoor fare increase the industry needs to cope with fuel prices topping $130 a barrel.
Airlines have raised fares 11 times this year on most routes and imposed a plethora of fees and fee increases from overweight luggage fees to pet fees to try to raise their income to meet fuel costs.
They've not been able to raise fares across the board enough to cope, so they've resorted to fee increases that are largely invisible to ticket buyers.
In addition to the checked bag increases, the airline announced it will cut back flying by its oldest, least fuel efficient planes and retire 75 of those aircraft.
Unclear is what the consequences of the bag fee will have on airports. Will check-in lines clog because of the extra time to collect bag fees? Will security lines lengthen because more passengers will bring carry-ons? And will loading and unloading aircraft become more chaotic because passengers are trying to carry more aboard?
