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Welcome to the era of the $70 bag fee.
JetBlue Airways has raised the price of checking a bag for many customers for the third time in less than a year as high fuel costs continue to eat into the industry’s profits.
Checking a first bag for travelers booked in economy will now be $50, up from $45, if purchased more than 24 hours before departure during a non-peak travel period. If it’s paid within 24 hours of departure, the fee will be $60. During a peak period, such as during the holidays or the summer, it will be $55, up from $49, and $70 for within 24 hours of departure.
There are exceptions to the checked bag fees, such as for customers who hold a co-branded JetBlue credit card or hold elite frequent flyer status.
“We’re adjusting checked bag fees to help offset rising fuel and operating costs,” JetBlue said in a statement. “This helps us keep our base fares competitive while giving customers the choice to pay for a checked bag only if they need one.”
The price of jet fuel, airlines’ biggest cost after labor, has roughly doubled this year since the start of the Iran war in February, costing airlines billions and driving up the price of tickets. Jet fuel was going for $4.44 a gallon on Tuesday for the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Other airlines often follow when one carrier raises fees. Major U.S. airlines did so earlier this year after JetBlue raised its bag fees.

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Voters across America are casting their ballots in the midterm elections on Tuesday, which will determine control of Congress and could add to investors’ concerns about oversight of the artificial intelligence (AI) sector and how the debt ceiling will be addressed next year.
Since President Donald Trump’s second term began in 2025 with Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress, the S&P 500 has gained about 27% in part due to a massive influx of spending on AI and strong earnings growth.
Treasury yields are also significantly higher in part because of geopolitical risks that emerged with the outbreak of the Iran war in late February, which caused a surge in energy prices. U.S. budget deficits have continued to widen to about $2 trillion, adding more upward pressure to yields as debt issuance mounts.
Investors are weighing how the results of the election will affect the outlook for financial markets depending on whether Democrats take control of one or both chambers of Congress.
AFFORDABILITY TAKES CENTER STAGE AS AMERICANS CAST THEIR BALLOTS IN HIGH-STAKES MIDTERMS
Since 1930, there have been eight midterm cycles when the president’s party lost control of the House, and the S&P 500 rose for the remainder of the year five times, Ned Davis Research said. It posted a median gain of 1.4% from Election Day through year-end, slightly less than the 1.9% posted across all post-Election Day midterm years.
In a scenario in which Democrats win control of both chambers of Congress, investors expect tougher oversight of AI which could weigh on markets that have been pushed higher by the emerging tech.
Democratic majorities would have the ability to investigate corporate America while attempting to slow deregulation, which could increase market volatility.
DSA PLATFORM COULD COST UP TO $212T OVER A DECADE, ANALYSIS FINDS
If Democrats win the House but Republicans hold their majority in the Senate, implications for the U.S. fiscal situation could be mixed.
Bipartisan compromises would be required over issues like funding the government to avoid shutdowns and raising the debt ceiling, which could create the potential for brinkmanship.
In a scenario where Republicans retain their majorities in the House and Senate, the GOP could pursue further tax reforms or boost defense spending.
FEDERAL BUDGET DEFICIT HITS $2T AS NATIONAL DEBT COSTS SURGE
Ned Davis chief U.S. strategist Ed Clissold said that a House takeover by Democrats could modestly temper the U.S. equity market’s year-end rally, but in general it hasn’t prevented stocks from advancing.
“Conventional wisdom is that gridlock is good (for stocks),” said Clissold, adding that stocks have performed better under Democratic presidents than Republicans.
Diego Barnuevo, market analyst at Ebury, said that a Democratic-held Congress’ negotiations with the White House would likely be limited to the budget and debt ceiling, and that a “Democratic sweep would be neutral to mildly positive for the fiscal outlook.”
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A Republican sweep could ease concerns over investigations into AI companies that carry the potential to rattle markets.
“If Republicans maintain control of Congress, that would likely provide the most supportive incremental federal policy backdrop for the AI/infrastructure buildout through policy continuity, potential fiscal expansion, deregulation and faster federal permitting,” JPMorgan strategists said in a note.

Google announced Tuesday morning that it would switch off AI products by default for students in schools that use the technology giant’s education software. But those schools that forgo its AI services would also be cut off from Google Search.
The move comes after mounting criticism from advocacy groups and senators about the spread of Google’s AI services available in classrooms. Until Tuesday, its AI products — branded under the Gemini moniker — were automatically activated for schools using Google Classroom.
Google said Tuesday’s move would also cut off students’ access to Google Search if schools do not enable Gemini, given AI’s growing integration into the company’s search products.
Chris Phillips, Google’s vice president and general manager of education, said in a blog post announcing the change that access to Gemini, Gemini Notebook, Gemini in Classroom and Google Search “will be entirely off for K-12 student accounts until school administrators explicitly turn them on.”
“We believe schools should have control over AI in their classrooms and in providing administrators with controls to help them manage their approach,” Phillips wrote.
Some education and technology advocates immediately slammed the decision, painting the move as a punishment for schools that don’t use Google’s AI. “It is unfortunate that Google has prioritized its business interests over the education of our children,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, a national educators union.
“Instead of working with teachers and parents to uphold privacy and ensure their tools are safe and useful, it throws the baby out with the bathwater and bans access to the tools altogether,” she told NBC News in written comments.
Josh Golin, executive director of advocacy group Fairplay, said in a statement that Google is attempting “to strong-arm schools into using its AI products.”
“Schools should use this opportunity to help students find more privacy-protective alternatives for search, as well as ways to do more substantive research beyond search and click,” Golin said.
Earlier this year, Google turned on Gemini in its Classroom app, allowing children — regardless of age — to access AI products unless districts disabled it.
Parent advocacy groups and experts on the use of technology in schools denounced Google for providing AI products to children — raising concern that students would outsource their work to AI systems on school devices — and lobbied school districts to disable Gemini products. In an open letter in early October, 13 leading parent advocacy organizations — including the Digital Childhood Institute and Schools Beyond Screens — called on school districts to turn off access to Gemini and YouTube, which is also owned by Google.
Google has established a dominant role in education technology over the past 15 years. The vast majority of Chromebook laptops are purchased by school districts to provide to students. Nearly two-thirds of assignments use a Google product, according to a 2023 report by the firm Schoolytics. This year, the company began offering multiday AI trainings for educators, featuring sessions that focused on how they could mitigate pushback by teachers who don’t want to use AI.
Research on AI in educational settings has not established a long-term benefit for students. There are no high-quality causal studies into student use of AI, according to the SCALE Initiative at the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Researchers have also warned that many of the studies conducted so far on AI in education didn’t measure whether it boosted learning and often did not test whether AI-assisted learning was superior to other teaching methods.