Posted on 06/14/2011 7:30:35 AM PDT by ilovesarah2012
U.S. airlines collected 10 percent more in fees last year to check bags and change reservations, raising more than $5.7 billion that helped them hold down losses from sharply higher fuel costs.
Delta Air Lines topped both categories, accounting for more than a fifth of the total that was compiled and released by the Transportation Department on Monday.
American Airlines, a unit of AMR Corp, was second overall followed by United Airlines and Continental Airlines, which are now merged. Combined, those two carriers would top Delta in the generation of ancillary revenue.
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
Not a dime from me while the TSA mouthbreathers are in control....
If you’re traveling light you can check your bag at the gate and avoid any baggage fees.
To all those who mourned the loss of Northwest Airlines; your culture is alive and well at Delta.
And if the money were buried in higher airfares instead of being explicitly based on activities?
You can also ship your luggage via UPS if the fees are too high. Just plan ahead and you may want to insure them.
Good for the airlines!
If passengers don't like it...don't fly.
Oh, wait...flying is a right, right?
That would probabaly balance out price-wise but the security of knowing that the TSA won’t go probing your personal property and ripping you off makes shipping FedEx or UPS an attractive option. Just show up with a light carry-on and you’re good to go.
There is one cost cutting idea that has been proposed many times, but the airlines just can’t make it happen. A few companies have been created for it, but just didn’t have the backing to survive.
The idea is that passenger transport and luggage cargo have very different shipping needs, and combining the two, as is done today, is both expensive and inefficient. So why not put them on two different aircraft? That way, cargo would only fly when the plane was full, and passenger transport would be a lot cheaper.
The way it would work in practice is for luggage to be initially shipped out before the passenger leaves. To start with, a van shows up at their home or destination before the trip, takes the luggage to the departure airport, where it is shipped. Then, at the destination airport, it is picked up by another van and taken to the passenger’s eventual destination.
Then the passenger flies light on a plane with just carry on luggage, using a lot less fuel than if it was also carrying cargo. Or if it carried cargo as well, it would be higher valued cargo, not low value luggage.
So the passenger airline either saves money or makes more money. Passengers don’t have to wrestle with luggage, pay less for passage, and transportation security is also much better.
They do pay a separate fee for their luggage, though. But it is a low cargo rate, not expensive luggage rate.
One reason I believe there is an opening for a third-party Populist rabble-rouser in next year’s election.
You can easily imagine someone running on a platform of “I’m gonna stop those Grrrrreeedy Bastards from NICKEL AND DIMING the American People!”
Airlines - nickel and diming with fees
Banks - nickel and diming with fees
Credit Card Companies - nickel and diming with fees
Cell Phone Carriers - nickel and diming with fees
Cable TV and ISP Companies - nickel and diming with fees
Of course Federal, State and Local Governments are the biggest offenders at Nickel and Diming us. But I suspect this approach will gain a great deal of traction for somebody.
Or is it they don't want us flying but rather have us buy one of their new gas efficinet Government Motors car to do your traveling.
I flew a few months ago. Booked online and got a baggage fee of $35 roundtrip instead of each way. Still, made me mad to have to pay to bring one piece of luggage under 50 pounds on my flight.
And they really need to stop serving alcohol on flights. Nothing worse than listening to drunk college girls for an hour and a half, unless maybe listening to drunk college boys.
I took a Delta flight recently which was so bad, they actually begged the passengers to check their excess carry-on baggage at the jetway entrance, free of charge, of course.
Even a freaking Greyhound Bus lets you check bags as part of the ticket price.
The other way to avoid baggage fees is fly Southwest.
And as for that “light carry-on”, I saw people carrying on luggage that was way bigger than should be allowed. And people trying to jam them into overhead compartments. Surprised the whole overhead didn’t come crashing down.
It isn’t the liberal media complaining, it’s passengers:
Seat comfort, fees top complaints in airline survey
Uncomfortable seats and “excessive fees” are at the top of the list of fliers’ complaints, according to a new survey from Consumer Reports.
Consumer Reports also joined a growing list of organizations offering an airline-by-airline rating of U.S. carriers, rating Southwest and JetBlue at the top and US Airways and United at the bottom. Consumer Reports last issued such a rating in 2007.
Speaking about fees, Consumer Reports says in a release:
“The proliferation of added fees at or after check-in by many carriers further contributes to passengers’ low opinion of today’s flying experience, and even to their decision of whether to fly at all. Forty percent of survey respondents who said they’re flying less these days gave increased fees as the major reason—far more than those who blamed flight delays, poor service, or any other annoyance.”
“What we found is that paying fewer additional fees generally translates into a passenger having higher overall satisfaction with an airline,” Mark Kotkin, a director of survey research at Consumer Reports, says in the release.
http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/post/2011/05/consumer-reports-airline-survey/169529/1
Unfortunately I fly all the time for business. It stinks.
I usually fly Delta and about 75-80% of the flights are completely full. The planes also seem to be getting smaller and smaller with less room for luggage in the over heads.
For most of those flights they are asking and in many cases requiring people to check their 2nd carry on.
For me its the total cost of the flight. People are trained to only look at the cost of the flight when making a decision. When people start looking at other costs it will change.
That said, the airline industry is the most dysfunctional and poorly managed industry after the auto. I’m sure the unions are a big cause of it.
Passenger transport and luggage may have different shipping needs in some respects, but in one key respect their shipping needs are identical: The passengers and the luggage need to be transported from the same origin to the same destination. I believe this important consideration overrides all other complications related to the different shipping needs of passengers and luggage.
It's also worth noting that airlines run a lucrative side business in moving air cargo completely unrelated to passengers inside the cargo areas of passenger aircraft. This is why, with the exception of overnight parcel/package carriers like UPS and FedEx, dedicated air cargo aircraft are slowly disappearing from the industry.
I don’t know the cost with UPS to ship a suitcase, but I can ship a saddle for about $35.00. My saddles weigh about 45 pounds.
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