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Summer travel up in the air: Cramped seats, rising fees and delays
TransportCall it the spring of uncertainty: The government says you can travel with little pocket knives, then decides no, you can’t. Budget sequester trims air traffic controllers’ hours, resulting in airport backups, then Congress restores schedules — for now, anyway. Homeland security curbs airport security checkpoint overtime and says lines aren’t longer, but some travelers [...]
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Study suggests U.S. passengers are learning to accept baggage fees
TransportGrouse all you want about airline baggage fees, but the numbers don’t lie: You are slowly learning to accept them as a painful but necessary part of the flying experience. In fact, the overall satisfaction with air travel has increased to the highest level since 2006, according to the J.D. Power & Associates airline satisfaction [...]
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Top U.S. airlines for extra fees in 2012: Delta Air Lines leads the way
TransportAccording to preliminary data from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics, for the third consecutive year Delta Air Lines beat out all other U.S. airlines in checked baggage and reservation change fees. Out of a total of more that $6 billion in fees collected by all reporting U.S. airlines, Delta took home [...]
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U.S. hotels have given up on extra fees, raising room rates instead
OriginalHotels are not airlines. OK, you know that. But, after making lots of noise in recent years about focusing on building additional ancillary fee revenue streams — just as the airlines are charging for bag fees etc — and exhibiting symptoms of a syndrome that Freud might have labeled “fee envy,” many hotels in the U.S. are [...]
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Spirit Airlines decides its customers don’t need a toll-free customer service line
TransportSpirit Airlines, the Florida-based no-frills carrier that introduced fees for carry-on bags, has found another way to pass on its costs to its passengers. The airline quietly replaced its toll-free customer help numbers with regular toll-charge number. “Our new numbers are allowing us to keep our costs low, which we in turn continue to pass [...]
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New airline ticket taxes: Who will pay, travelers or taxpayers?
TransportA $300 domestic airline ticket now includes about $60 in taxes — or 20 percent of the total fare — which pays for things like air traffic controllers, airport improvements, customs and immigration inspections and checkpoint screening. President Obama, in his 2014 budget request, has proposed increases in many of those taxes, a move that [...]
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Low-cost carriers and airfares: Shattering the myths
TransportThe average true price of a one-way airline ticket has increased by nearly 30 percent since 2008, and the presence of a low-cost carrier is not an accurate predictor of lower airfares, says a new study by Evergreen, Colorado-based Boyd Group International. The data indicate that recruiting a “low cost” carrier to an airport may [...]
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Delta and American Airlines match United’s hefty ticket change fee
TransportDelta Air Lines Inc. and American Airlines have matched United’s increase in the fee for changing a domestic-flight reservation to $200 from $150. With US Airways Group Inc. having matched the increase last week, all four of the so-called legacy airlines have raised the cost of changing a ticket. United Continental Holdings Inc. has said [...]
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Frontier Airlines pushes direct-booking with $100 overhead bin fee if you book elsewhere
TransportFrontier Airlines plans to start charging up to $100 for a carry-on bag and $2 for coffee or soda, although its announcement on Wednesday did say that passengers will get to keep the whole can. The new carry-on fee is for bags in the overhead bin, so small bags under the seat will still be [...]
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These are the new fees that UK airlines are hitting travelers with
TransportAn annual study by TravelSupermarket, the price comparison website, revealed those carriers whose fees for “optional” services, including checked luggage and allocated seating, have risen most sharply. The largest increase in baggage fees was by Thomson. The airline’s charge has gone up by 47 per cent since 2012, from £15 per person per flight to [...]
