This article over at SeekingAlpha.com explains why the airlines need your extra $20 “per-checked-bag” fee while they continued to slash their pilot’s salaries.

In 2008, while the 5 remaining legacy airlines lost a cumulative $4.6 billion (excludes special charges), the 25 top executives collectively received over $90 million in compensation, averaging over $3.6 million per executive.
The legacy airlines are: American (AMR), Delta (DAL), United (UAUA), Continental (CAL) and US Airways (LCC).
So, while upper management did rather well, how did the other stake holders come out?
• In just one year, these 5 legacy carriers lost an incredible $17 billion of stock-holder equity as their cumulative market cap dropped from $21.9 billion to only $5 billion.
• 6,300 jobs were eliminated in 2008.
• The average annual wage per employee was $57,000 and unchanged from a decade ago.
I guess we could use our imagination to estimate how much executive compensation would increase if the airlines actually made money?

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