Soldiers pay bag fee on travel to war

After decades of greedily sucking up subsidies from the pockets of the taxpayers, the dirty rotten SCUM in the airline industry now take great pleasure in ripping off our soldiers. But, just like the stupid liberals who were at the forefront of throwing our tax money at these SCUM, they have no shame. I hope they all crash and burn alive.

This isn't an incident, it's an attitude. The Democrats in Congress call them murders, torturers and Nazi's, Oakland wouldn't let them use their facilities on their return home, we are unconcerned about city council preferencial protests against an USMC recruiting station in Berkeley, a recruiting station bombing in New York, Obama won't take an hour out of his European rock star tour, their enemies now have U.S. constitutional habeus corpus rights and now they have to pay to go to fight a war. These people are not mercenaries, they are a volunteer military that is controlled by a civilian government. Why do they do it, you can believe in the words of the song: "they don't do it for the money, there are bills they can't pay"? The spitting patriots of the 1960's now are in charge. Russia is on the move, China is seeking military parity, hell, even Chavez is building his confidence and we are charging for extra baggage. Here's a question, ask the person next to you if they would volunteer for the "extra baggage" military if another 911 occurred?

American Airlines are pigs. This policy sickens me. The ninth circle of hell is reserved for their executives that implemented this policy. I'll never fly these idiots again.

The bigger question is why are our military forces relying on private transportation at all? Seems to me that this state of affairs is just another excuse for the airlines to claim that we MUST bail them out when they go bankrupt through mismanagement and greed. How many millions do airline CEOs make these days? And why?

How UN-American. As a former employee, I believe this airline is turning into American't.

The issue here is the military travel and pay system. I've been in the Navy for almost 15 years and too many people are having knee-jerk reactions to this. Paying a couple hundred dollars for travel expenses is expected. If they have the government credit card then it is taken care of just as if they had used the gov't card to stay in a hotel. Also, they may or may not be getting advanced travel pay. I am sure there are cases where some young soldiers that don't understand the system [I still don't quite get it] are ill served and poorly advised by their chain-of-command.

It may be re-imbursed, but it must be a specific endorsement on the orders in advance. An unexperienced traveler will be surprised by this. They may get it back eventually, but it will take months. Troops tend to be a little busy to keep after DFAS from the field.

This is an outrage. I'll never fly UnAmerican again. My wife and I are Navy vets and we agree. Never forget, American was one of the Planes, and I feel they owe the armed forces who protect and serve. There is nothing knee-jerk about that.

The fault does not lie with American Airlines. I am an active duty member of the Air Force. When we need to take cargo with us on commercial airlines, we need to properly utilize the travel system (run by the Department of Defense) in order to account for all of our expenses. We are able to get such expenses added in to our travel orders, so we don't have to pay them. This charge is the result of orders that were not written correctly. In addition to that, AA also allows military members a generous amount of personal cargo at no charge, these soldiers went beyond that and should have had their orders modified to suit the expense beforehand.

Activeairman--pull your head out please. This article is clearly meant to address those airmen that actually deploy. Unlike at your comfy battlestation where DTS is a reality, no such system exists in theater. I am currently deployed and was subjected to the same crap from Northwest airlines--Three months later, I'm still waiting for the morons in my home finance office to unscrew it, and in the meantime I'm out $500 to good 'ol Bank of America. It is a travesty--it ought to go on a single government account--Military member shows up with bags, airline bills the DoD, troop deploys without having to worry about the $4.00 fee for cash advance and/or service fee for using the "benefit" of a government travel card. Get off your base and come enjoy the heat--your REMF perspective may change. FTB (Iraq)

Back in the mid 80's as a member of the military, I also traveled as part of my official military duties via civilian airlines (i.e, traveling to another duty station) and I was restricted as to how much baggage I could bring "for free" on that trip. Household goods, which was what we called our personal belongings, were shipped separately and that usually took longer. In one instance, over a month. So I'm not surprised that troops are being asked to ether ship their personal belongings separately, or to pay a fee which will later be reimbursed. The real question is, why do the troops NEED so much extra personal belongings? They're being deployed in a war zone, are they not? It can't be much of a war if our troops can afforded the luxury of bringing their personal gear with them, like the PS2 my nephew had while stationed in Iraq. This is less like a combat deployment and more like a duty station assignment.

The problem, if there is one, is with the military travel system, not with the airlines. Travel results in any number of hassles. The party best equipped to mitigate such hassles is the military, which controls its own travel system. As the last guy said, he's waiting for reimbursement for one of his travel expenses. That's the problem--not the fee. Military finance isn't working out for him--that's not AA's fault. Also, why aren't there other things being done to ease the travel of military members going downrange? Why should they have to carry their own bags--where are the rows of porters waiting? Why aren't they given free drinks? Perhaps they should be allowed to smoke onboard--we can suspend federal regulations. All food in airports along the way should also be free. Why are they forced to sit coach? No backrubs from the flight attendants? Traveling is a series of inconveniences--that's just the way it is. Also, for those of you who are outraged, I'm outraged that you're outraged. If you then become outraged that I'm outraged that you're outraged, I must warn you, I'll be outraged. This is a non-story. I mention this so the editor of the "Times" can improve.

Here is where the military and American leaders should step up and co-operate to stop this nuttiness in the name of a few $$. These guys are going away for a long time! make a hard rule ,one extra bag OK with a weight ,after that ,on your own .Come on Military/Airline leaders? Stop covering your butts and get it done for Christs sake.

I can't believe 'Cobra" (must be a tough guy ,ha ) is miffed the troops bring some non-essentials with them for off time .Were you ever called on little cobra ,I doubt it with your lack of understanding when you re gone for a year or more and could be killed .

FTB, it doesn't matter if you're being assigned to a duty station "in theater" in Iraq, Germany (where I was stationed for 18 months), Afghanistan, Ect., or CONUS. The military travel system works the same way.