Some airlines relax bag fees for certain military

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several U.S. airlines now allow military personnel to check a third bag for free, a move that represents a modest rollback on extra charges most passengers pay to help carriers offset high fuel costs.

Airlines are responding to a request from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York Democrat, and veterans' groups that they give active military personnel traveling on official business an added break on costs.

"At this time a wide majority of them have announced plans to waive extra baggage fees for military personnel traveling on orders or have never had a fee in place," Jim May, chief executive of the Air Transport Association industry trade group, wrote on Friday in a letter to the commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The change at American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp, Northwest Airlines, Alaska Air Group and other carriers mainly allows military personnel on official business to check up to three bags free. Those passengers are already allowed to check up to two bags without charge.

Major U.S. airlines, battered by record high fuel prices this year, have begun charging passengers for extra checked bags, pillows, and services that used to be covered by the cost of a ticket.

UAL Corp, parent of United Airlines, started the trend in February when it announced plans to charge for a second bag check. Rivals quickly matched it. In May, American said it would charge passengers a fee to check a single bag. Some -- but not all -- rivals have matched that.

The fees have been unpopular with passengers but considered a business necessity with losses ballooning.

A recent decline in fuel prices, however, has brightened the airlines' financial outlook for 2009. But industry experts do not expect any broad near-term reversal of fees and other extra charges that can yield hundreds of millions in revenue.

(Reporting by John Crawley and Kyle Peterson; editing by Phil Berlowitz)