Airlines have launched a lobbying blitz in Brussels to combat efforts to allow larger cabin bags to fly for free.
That frisson of fear felt by many air passengers at the boarding gate about being hit with an extra charge for a carry-on bag is generating a political dogfight.
Spain had enough of the extra fees and fined five airlines for charging people for hand luggage; now the battle over the freedom to stuff a porkier bag into the overhead bin is being joined in other countries.
Consumer organizations from 12 European countries on Wednesday joined Spain’s legal battle against low-cost airlines charging passengers to bring larger carry-on suitcases on board.
My mom made money as a lobbyist when I was a kid.
She lobbied on behalf of family farms that wanted to limit the use of bovine growth hormones, either because they had moral objections to pumping their cows full of steroids or because its use gave advantages to factory dairy farms over small family operations.
Lobbying is a disease on democracy, but there are moral cases for its existence in certain circumstances.
I think that if it was impossible to get paid for it, they could just petition the government themselves and get a lot better results. Lobbying will always tilt the field in the direction of people with more money over those with less.