Thanksgiving Travel Woes: Faulty Airline Baggage Scales

Nov. 20, 2009— -- If you are flying this Thanksgiving, you better check the weight of your bags twice.

A three-week enforcement sweep from Oct. 19 to Nov. 6 by regulators in New York found that many of the scales the airlines use to weigh your bags weren't registering the right weight.

That could mean big penalties for you.

Most major airlines already charge passengers $15 to $20 to check a bag. But if that bag is overweight -- typically the threshold is 50 pounds -- the airlines tag on a steep penalty, ranging from $25 to a whopping $150. And often those fees are imposed each way.

The airlines collected more than $1.2 billion in such baggage fees in the first six months of this year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

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Before you panic and think that the airlines are trying to rip you off -- or at least cheat you at the scale -- note that 92.3 percent of the 741 scales at the two airports were found to be in perfect working condition. The airlines were ordered to stop using the other 57 scales, and they have since been fixed.

New York Department of Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jonathan Mintz's said that of those 57 scales that failed inspection, only 42 percent were overweighing bags.

The other good news for travelers is that this year's inspection showed more scales in working order: 92.3 percent compared to 88 percent during last year's enforcement drive.