Frequent fliers are flying the coop because of new fees.
Over the past week, I’ve spoken with half a dozen relatively frequent fliers, who have basically told me the same thing: they’re booking away from American Airlines, United Airlines and US Airways because of the $15 first-bag charge.
A friend planning an August trip between Washington and Boston found the screen on Kayak.com registering the same $318 for flights on American, United, US Airways and Delta.
“I found myself scanning past American, United and US Air,” she told me. “It was almost unconscious, but I didn’t want to fly on an airline that charged $15 extra for that first bag. It really is a higher airfare not only a fee. What if I end up buying something in Boston and want to bring it home? I’ll be really irritated when they want their $15 fee.”
She went on to book a flight on Delta that actually cost $4 more than the American, United and US Airways fares.
She is not alone. Friends heading to Reno, Seattle, Denver and planning a ski vacation next winter have all told me they consciously booked away from the three airlines charging fees; they also paid more for their tickets for that privilege. The skier knows that he will have to pay extra to ship his skis, but has no interest in adding another $15 to the price of his ticket, plus possibly more added costs, should the airlines separate skis and ski boots and call them two pieces of luggage rather than one as most do now.
These are the customers that American Airlines is targeting with their hidden fee campaign. Mark DuPont, American’s vice-president Airport Services Planning, admitted that to Budget Travel.
We estimate that 78 percent of our customers fly us only one time in the course of a year. They are not repeat customers in a short-term sense. Many of these customers buy their tickets online. If we don’t have the lowest price on a route and if we don’t show up on the first screen of airfare search results, we will lose the business of customers.
Nothing like purposeful deceit in a marketing approach. It may backfire. Maybe you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. American and their $15-first-bag-charge buddies are aiming to fool some of the people some of the time.
This action flies in the face of clear Department of Transportation policy. This comes from a recent guidance memo 73 F.R. 28854, May 19, 2008, issued by the agency.
The Department’s long-standing policy has been to require carriers to clearly disclose significant conditions applicable to air fares. Failure to disclose such conditions has been considered an unfair and deceptive practice and unfair method of competition in violation of 49 U.S.C. § 41712 and where warranted the Aviation Enforcement Office has taken enforcement action against carriers who engage in such practices. The Aviation Enforcement Office considers such significant conditions to include limiting passengers to fewer than two free checked bags of the size and weight that have generally been free on the carrier in the past and to assessing passengers a charge in addition to the air fare for such checked baggage. Therefore, it is important that carriers provide prominent and timely notice of these baggage policies and such charges.
I’m waiting for some enforcement.
