Two weekends ago I flew up to the Bay Area on Virgin America. I’ve flown VA quite a few times in the past, but I guess it had been a while since the last flight because I had no idea they had started charging baggage fees. At the airport my family was suddenly hit with a $20 fee per bag. When we questioned the employee working at the baggage check-in about the change, he said that VA had decided to lower the ticket price but make up the difference through baggage fees.

I’m sure I don’t know all the factors involved in making a decision like that. I would guess that having lower ticket fees sells more tickets, and that’s what matters most. But to me it seems like an odd decision from a company that has otherwise been very focused on the customer experience. Everything, from the design of the planes’ interior features to the check-in terminals to the website were all carefully designed to craft a specific customer experience in the spirit of the long wow.

Baggage fees are a negativity grenade thrown into the middle of Virgin America’s carefully constructed experience. According to the Peak-End Rule, people judge a past experience almost entirely based on how it was at its peak (either pleasant or unpleasant) and how it ended. And the loss aversion behavioral bias says that losses are about twice as powerful psychologically than gains. So when you combine those two things with baggage fees, what do you get?

You bought a cheap ticket, and the experience is off to a good start. Then some long-ish amount of time later—during which the deal euphoria fades—you go to the airport and get hit with a baggage fee that you probably had forgotten about, or as in my case, never realized you were going to be charged. You packed that bottle of shampoo so you’re at their mercy. You’re still annoyed about the bag fees as you go through the never-pleasant security screening. Then when you get on the plane, there’s little to no overhead bin space because everyone else avoided checking their bags. Stress levels go up as the flight attendants desperately try to fit in all the bags and then tell the late boarders that they’ll have to gate check. Hopefully all of this doesn’t delay departure.

Once the plane takes off, all of VA’s previous hard work on the plane’s interior and in-flight experience does some to counter the negativity. In fact, I would bet customers on longer flights report better experiences than those on short flights. For me on my short flight from LA to SF, the peak emotion of my experience was definitely the strong aversion I felt suddenly realizing I was out a bunch of money with no added benefit. And reuniting with my bags at the end of the flight only reminded me of the fees yet again.

Now, I’m mostly extrapolating from my own experience (bad UX designer!). Maybe if I were able to do some research, I would see that the benefit of the cheap ticket outweighs the shock of the baggage fees. Maybe most people aren’t shocked by it. Or maybe the flight experience separates people from the fee enough that it doesn’t impact the overall experience too much.

But what if Virgin America instead added the cost back into the ticket and then gave a rebate to those customers who check zero bags? Just imagine going to the airport and finding out that you get money back. Raising ticket prices is tricky, but wouldn’t that transform the experience of bag fees from horrible shock to wonderful, loyalty-inspiring wow?

Further reading:

• More on Loss Aversion
• More on the Peak-End Rule
• Peak-End Rule illustrated
• Design Ethnography and Mood Maps by Will Evans