From Tom Parsons - More Airline Fees! The Baggage Police Will Be Watching You Too!
Oct-12-2012

Anytime you fly these days, you are subject to fees and it seems like new ones are popping up all the time. You've got baggage fees, snack fees, change fees, cancellation fees, and on and on!
While these fees can be aggravating for the traveler, they are a big money maker and are keeping the airlines afloat. Last year, most U.S. airlines made a profit, and that profit totaled about $2.5 billion. There were three airlines that lost money, American ($2 billion), Frontier ($152 million) and Virgin America ($27 million) and when you subtract the losses from the total profits, the airlines only made about $300 million combined. In 2011, the airlines collected over $6 billion in a la cart fees and had it not been for these fees, the airlines would have had a combined loss of $4 billion.
Beginning November 6, Spirit is going to do something that will drive you crazy. If you don't prepay for your carry-on, either online or at an airport kiosk, your fee will be $100 for your bag. I believe many people will roll their bags up to the gate because they are unaware of the policy and will be stuck having to pay the fee. If they have time to make it back through security, they should because they can save $50 by paying for the carry-on at a kiosk. So far, Spirit and Allegiant are the only airlines that charge a fee for carry-on bags.
I think Spirit is charging such a high fee for carry-ons because the airline wants passengers to pre-pay before they get to the gate, either online or at an airport kiosk. Spirit would prefer for you to carry your bag on board instead of checking it, but the airline can keep arguments down at the gate if you've already paid the fee.
When the airlines started using paperless tickets, they charged $25 for paper tickets, but that fee didn't deter enough people from requesting paper tickets. When they raised the fee to $50 for paper tickets, everyone was suddenly ok with paperless tickets.

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Posted by Ken at 6:49 PM - Link to this entry  |  Share this entry  |  Print