It was announced today that United is not only raising most domestic airfares $10-$60 roundtrip to, as they all endlessly say, “offset the runaway cost of fuel”, but they are also, as MSNBC says, and we quote, “‘seriously considering’ following AMR Corp.’s American Airlines in charging passengers to check their first piece of luggage.”

That took what, 2 days for the first airline to talk about following suite with Americans dreadful first bag charge, which means it is pretty much a forgone conclusion it will happen as that little quote is leaked to the public just to prep you for what will happen and then you will not be so shocked when they confirm the first bag fee as you will already have had days to ruminate over it.

We love this ubiquitous, overly used excuse, “It’s part of all the work that we’re doing to try to offset fuel costs,” spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said.” Uh yeah, but we guess cutting all those exorbitant Executive bonuses and ungodly high Executive salaries is not one of the steps?

UPDATE 6.12.08: as we said it would… it did.. United announced they would institute this now virtually industry wide first bag fee of $25 smackers! First and second bags will still be free for itineraries that include international flight and for those ‘special’ elite customers.