Although a US Department of Transportation said airline fares in the US had been falling, observers cautioned that this was not the case. In an article published by Reuters, the news agency pointed out that fees are the ultimate culprit to your travel bill.
In the hopes of explaining and staving off complaints of the application of such fees, airlines resorted to "unbundling." The procedure of stripping down airline fare by associating certain costs to items. For the informed, booking fares online would go through a multi-step process wherein an airline or a travel agency would allow you to indicate whether you would be travelling with extra baggage, a child or would want to have a preferred seat assignment.
Travel booking site CheapAir.com Jeff Klee said, "It's getting harder and harder to get good seats without paying extra. Because so many airlines have started charging for a large percentage of the window or aisle seats," Klee says, "it is often impossible to get a row of seats together without paying a premium."
The Department of Transportation released data that indicated a 3.6% drop in airfares for the fiscal year ending in June. Average domestic fare for both one-way and roundtrip fares was now at USD378. This, said Reuters, was a significant decrease from inflation-adjusted USD392 recorded the same period last year.
Travel consumer advocate Christopher Elliott said airline profits would indicate whether travelers opted to pay more than just the basic fare. Add-on fees trendsetter Spirit Airlines recorded a 33% revenue increase to USD456.6 million in the last quarter this year, said Reuters. USD171.1 million of the revenue reportedly came from fees. Industry association Airlines for America said on Thursday that the top ten biggest carriers in the US earned an overall 4% net profit of USD4.5 billion in the first nine months of the year. This was a 0.3% increase from the same period in 2012, which was at USD312 million.
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