Airporter charges extra fee for oversized luggage

The Airporter shuttle has begun charging students as much as $24 — the price of an extra ticket — for bringing large suitcases aboard.

Alan Glickman, the shuttle's CEO said the penalty, instituted in August, is necessary to keep students from filling the bus with luggage and displacing other passengers.

Students returning from summer vacation with books, clothing and bedding said the policy takes advantage of their situation and complain that the penalty has been haphazardly enforced.

"The Airporter policies are progressively getting worse," Jane Shen '04 said. "They've hiked the fairs and now they're charging for luggage."

Shen took a United Airlines flight from Johannesburg, South Africa, to John F. Kennedy International Airport, but the airline did not charge her to carry her two suitcases aboard the 17-hour flight.

However, the Airporter did make her pay the additional luggage charge from JFK to Princeton, in addition to the one-way fare.

Shen said her bags were each well below the 70-pound limit that the Airporter uses to classify bags as "oversize."

The Airporter's red shuttles are taken by scores of students traveling to and from Newark International, JFK and LaGuardia International airports.

Glickman said the penalty only applies to travelers going from Princeton to JFK and that it is only enforced when the bags displace other passengers.

Glickman said the penalty mirrors that of several air carriers that have begun charging for oversize baggage.

"Airlines are enforcing it really aggressively. It's a new phenomenon," he said.

Indeed, Diana Cronan of the Washington-based Air Transport Association of America said some carriers charge for oversize bags, and some do not.

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"They vary from airline to airline," she said.

But Glickman said the penalty is rarely enforced.

"To Kennedy there is a charge if the luggage is so expansive that it precludes another passenger from riding," Glickman said. "It's rare that we do make that charge."

Several students, however, said the penalty has been enforced from Newark Airport as well.

Mark Newman '04, returning to the University from his home in Tallahassee, Fla., said the driver was charging students $10 per bag on his Airporter trip from Newark.

Shen added that she was also frustrated by the overall service.

For example, she said the bus traveled first south of Princeton to Cranbury and then north of Princeton to West Windsor-Plainsboro to drop off two older passengers before bringing the seven University students to campus.

"We realized they were making detours all around Princeton to drop off the other passengers before the students, even though we made up the bulk of the bus," she said.

"I am forced to take the Airporter every time I go home. I'm sure more people have horror stories," she said. "They aren't too rare."

But some students said they were pleased with Airporter's service, and they would continue to use the shuttle.

Ananya Lodaya '04, returning to the University from her native India, said she was carrying very large suitcases from Newark, but was not charged.

"I had some very oversized pieces of luggage, but not a word was said," she said. "When I think about what I'm paying for my air ticket from India, which is a lot of air miles, the cost of getting to the airport doesn't seem all that much."