American Airlines has been in the travel news a great deal recently, not so much for anything going on with their planes, but with how they want their flights booked. Now they are threatening travel agents with a $5.50 segment fee for flights not booked on their system. Another stealth fee for consumers may be coming from AA through travel agents to consumers.
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Consumers paid more than $9.2 billion in fees to U.S. airlines in 2010 for checked baggage and other services, but these fees were hidden from most travelers when they purchased their airline tickets, because the airlines refuse to share their fee information with travel agents and other distributors
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When grandmothers are irritated with the airlines about hidden fees and sick and tired of being surprised at the airport with another fee, it is time for a change.
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If the airlines honestly believe that airline fees are about providing the flying public the services they want at a fair price, they will join us in urging DOT to mandate full disclosure of airline fees and work proactively with travel agents and GDSs to make all fees transparent and allow transactions for these fees to be made at any place that sells airfares.
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The Consumer Travel Alliance is in the midst of conducting a survey about hidden airline fees. As part of the study, we need stories about the effect on travelers of these hidden airline fees. Please add them to our comments.
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In Europe airline fees are flourishing. Many of the fees charged by the low cost carriers haven’t even been seen by American passengers. Airline fees just keep on coming and U.S. travelers are getting more and more frustrated with airlines. But it could be worse.
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Hidden airline fees had a bad week as politicians, travel agents and consumers all took a swing at airlines for not revealing their fees through the basic central reservation systems and “hiding” them on their own websites to be revealed “at the time of purchase.”
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Last month we noted that Ryanair was conducting a survey to determine what new fees they might impose on their customers. The survey was somewhat tongue-in-cheek. The responses were surprisingly serious.
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With the proliferation of airline fees, it seems one needs a program to keep track of the players and the additional fees they charge. Southwest Airlines has added a fee chart to their website to track the difference between their no-fee approach to flying and the other guys. This is probably the most up-to-date listing of airline fees found on the Web.
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