United Airlines has launched a new baggage delivery service where in United will deliver traveler’s checkedin baggages to places that are within 100 miles from the destination airport. Travelers no more have to wait in the airport to collect their bags. United has partnered with BagsVIP to offer this service.

This service is currently available only in these select arrival airports – Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Houston, Los Angeles and Orlando. In the next coming months, United plans to expand this service to 190 other domestic (US) airports.

This baggage delivery service comes with a fee (obviously): $29.95 for 1 bag, $39.95 for 2 bags, $49.95 for 3 to 8 bags. This fees applies on top of standard check-in baggage charges.

Yesterday, we reported the top 10 US airlines that collect baggage fees and United stands second in the list. Airlines are constantly in the lookout for new channels to generate ancillary revenue to compensate the other losses they face.

American Airlines was the first US carrier to launch similar service (by partnering with the same company BagsVIP) in August 2012. This kind of service is also offered by few other airports (Hongkong International Airport for example) and many other third party providers like – DirectBaggage, BaggageQuest, LuggageForward and LuggageFree.

Is a service like this needed?

We would say yes. This service will ensure customers do not wait at the airports to collect their bags and also ensures that THEIR bags reach the destination and not someone else. BagsVIP ensures this mishandling scenario by a BagsVIP tag. Also, in 2011, there were a total of 25.8 million mishandled bags that costed the industry a whopping $2.58 billion.

Is this baggage delivery service going to work?

Again, it’s a yes. This service is currently working, living proof is American Airlines. The one industry that’s known for replicating services faster is none other than Airline industry. If United is launching baggage delivery service after four months of launch from American, it has seem ‘some traction’ in this space.

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