AirTran Follows Delta with First Bag Fee

(MoneyWatch)  Just a quick followup to my post about Delta adding a fee to check the first bag. You may recall that I said,

I imagine we'll hear from AirTran on this fairly soon, or maybe AirTran will try to grab the competitive advantage and run with it.

Apparently they've decided to go with the former. It surprisingly took the airline almost a full week before announcing that they too would add a $15 fee for the first checked bag. I wonder why they bothered to delay. Did they want to make it look like they hadn't already decided what to do if Delta added the fee? Maybe they actually had a healthy debate going on about whether it was better to grab the extra revenue or try to differentiate.

We'll probably never know. All we know is that AirTran fell in line nicely, and I'm sure Delta is happy to see it.