July 15th, 2010
Hidden Airline Fees
Feel like you’re being milked and bilked for all you’re worth by the airlines when you make travel plans? Turns out: you are!
A U.S. House subcommittee on aviation recently found that airlines have charged fees for services that consumers would normally expect to have included in the ticket price, including baggage fees, seat choice, and reservation changes or cancellations.
While airlines counter that they’re able to lower their fares by unbundling these fees, the government feels differently, and that the proliferation of new fees can be “confusing and in some cases misleading.”
One proposal was to extend the airline excise tax of 7.5% to the full total, unbundled fee—currently, the added fees for services like checking a single piece of baggage escape the tax. The airlines argued that additional taxes would harm growth of the economy.
What this could mean for travelers, and A Traveling Dog readers? It could mean that government moves forward with pushing the excise tax and airlines (almost inevitably) decide to pass the costs on to consumers. Or it means that customers get savvier about being sure about what to book (without cancellations or changes) and get increasingly bigger pieces of carry-on luggage in order to avoid checked baggage fees.