With Air Canada and Southwest the

latest airlines to charge passengers for check-in luggage, the ballooning cost of such ancillary or "junk fees" is provoking anger among politicians and consumer groups. At the same time, sales of suitcases small enough for passengers to take on the plane as hand luggage are booming.

Standing outside Toronto's downtown airport, Lauren Alexander has flown over from Boston for the weekend. She describes such additional charges as "ridiculous".

"It feels like a trick," says the 24-year-old. "You buy the ticket, you think it's going to be less expensive, then you have to pay $200 (£148) extra [to bring a suitcase]."

To avoid the fee, Ms Alexander

instead travelled with a small backpack as hand luggage.

Sage Riley, who is 27, agrees, telling the BBC, "It can be pricey."

There was a time when checked bags, seat selection and your meals all came as standard on commercial flights. But that all changed with the rise of the budget airlines, says Jay Sorensen of US aviation consultancy IdeaWorks.

It was in 2006 when UK low-cost carrier FlyBe became what is believed to be the world's first airline to start charging passengers to check in bags. It charged £2 for a pre-booked item of luggage, and £4 if the customer hadn't paid in advance.

Other budget carriers then quickly

followed suit, with the so-called flag carriers or established airlines then also doing so, at least on shorter flights.

In 2008 American Airlines became the first US airline to charge a fee, $15, for the first checked bag on its domestic routes.

Mr Sorenson says such traditional airlines felt they had no choice when they "began to realise that the low-cost carriers were providing very significant competition". He adds: "They felt they had to do something to meet that."