Fuel surcharges are generally accounted for as part of the fare on revenue tickets, they're a way of extracting additional revenue on award tickets. However, all the major US rewards programs don't charge fuel surcharges anymore. Air Canada gave up on it too. The only one of note is Alaska and American redemptions on British Airways.

On domestic tickets there's no YQ, YR or embedded Q surcharges anyways.

Domestic airfare in the US is down 36% adjusted for inflation since 1995. [1]

Even base tier status concentrated flying with any one carriers get you a waived checked bag, and so does pretty much any airline credit card. So basically you shouldn't pay more than $95 a year in checked baggage fees.

US airlines generally have sub-5% net margins which is why they find themselves in creditor protection every decade or so when the market turns. There's a long-running adage about investing in airlines.

[1] https://www.bts.gov/content/annual-us-domestic-average-itine...

Bag fees are fairly small compared to the ticket price and obviously don’t make up for a 50% decrease.

People who fly any amount don't pay for checked bags if they check anything at all.