Yahoo! Offers to Pay Bay Area Flyers' Luggage Fees

Posted 12/23/2009 at 3:25pm | by Bart Salisbury

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Yahoo! must be jonesing for good press in a bad way. To get some buzz going the company has announced it will pay the baggage fee for those flying out San Francisco International and San Jose International airports on December 23rd. As an effort to promote good will and brand identity, it’s a move that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

First, there’s the obvious: the offer is really limited. Sure, December 23rd is the busiest travel day of the year, but still the number of people flying out of these particular airports pales in comparison to all who will be flying that day. And if the intent is to impart brand loyalty, it’s pretty doubtful that people, upon returning home, will switch en mass to Yahoo! from their present search engine provider. They’ll say thanks, to be sure, but that’s about it.

And if the move is to impress Silicon Valley investors and venture capitalists, as suggested by a Bay Area NBC station, it neglect an important fact: those who fly first class don’t pay luggage fees--only us chumps back in monkey economy class get stuck with extra fees.

The offer is the brainchild of “Yahoo! for Good”, which engages in “small acts of kindness” in the hope they “can ignite a ripple of generosity.” The aforementioned NBC stations asks: “...is there a better place to start than a crowded airport?” I can think of at least one.

Update...A response to the above from Terrell Karlsten, Yahoo!'s director of Global Communications:

"The goal of Yahoo!’s year-end giving program is to inspire ripples of kindness around the world.  Some of the ideas from our audience that we're helping carry out on a larger scale with Yahoo! resources have focused on the needy.  We paid for children from a shelter to go to the Nutcracker and Wicked, we are paying for people's overdue heating bills in Kentucky so their heat isn't shut down, we're giving grocery gift cards to needy families so they can cover the food costs when the school hot lunch programs are on holiday, we are helping low income seniors with their holiday shopping, we donated money to the SF Food Bank....and much more.  Some of the ideas help the needy, and some of them (like the baggage fee payment) are meant to inspire people who can "pay it forward" and start a ripple of kindness that helps others."

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