Airline Fees: Airline Exec Calls for Crackdown on Excess Fees

October 7, 2009 | Posted in: Airline Fees, Australia, Bags, Virgin

A voice of sanity?

The airline exec calling for a crackdown is Virgin’s Richard Branson, and he was actually complaining about excess fees on Australian airlines, but his sentiments apply all over:

“The extra fees are not a good idea. The problem is that once one airline has done it, it makes their basic ticket price look less and therefore the other airlines have to match it otherwise people think that the other airline is cheaper than they are.” -Sir Richard Branson, 10-1-09

Keep reading for more of the legendary entrepreneur’s thinking – and my response to some of his ideas…

Keep reading more deeply into the article and you’ll see it’s not so much the fees Branson is opposed to, as the way they can be “hidden” from the advertised cost of a ticket (I can hear Branson’s rivals now, arguing “How do we know if a passenger wants to check a bag or buy some food?”).

I agree with Branson, that all fees should be upfront – which is why I created my “U.S. Domestic Airline Fee Chart”, listing all the fees you could possibly encounter on a U.S. airline – but I also believe fees are here to stay, and your best bet is to try to avoid them (like packing light and using a carryon to avoid checked-bag fees).

4 Responses to “Airline Fees: Airline Exec Calls for Crackdown on Excess Fees”

1. Fresh Airfare says:

   October 8, 2009 at 2:16 pm

   Fee based pricing models just tend to annoy fliers. It’s not about the money, but the principal of it. This is especially true for American fliers who are fundamentally against excessive taxation in their country. Excessive fees rub them the same wrong way.

   Keep adding fees to their airline tickets and they’ll be ceremoniously dumping their boarding passes into Boston Harbor before you know it.
2. Jim Book says:

   October 9, 2009 at 2:37 pm

   The problem is that the ‘advice’ to pack light to avoid fees doesn’t work for all passangers. For example, people with health issues such as sleep apnea must carry their CPAP machine. If a person has a laptop, they need to carry that as well, and then of course the clothes. While one might be able to pack the clothes lightly, this creates three bags of necessity one must travel with. Dump the generalizations in the advice! Airlines, wake up! Quit charging people for medical necessities!
3. Rainy says:

   October 9, 2009 at 7:55 pm

   The surcharge premise is ridiculous. How would we feel if Walmart charged us extra at the till if we used a credit or debit card? or used a salesperson? or the bathroom? or the changing room? or a cart?? or asked us to pay our share for janitorial services? & security? or even to just walk in the door? Hello – this is all part of the ‘overhead’ cost of doing business….. stop this nit picking…. They are going too far & international govts should step in & outlaw this nonsense……… this crap makes it very hard for time-strapped consumers to find the best flight.
4. Ron says:

   October 12, 2009 at 9:06 am

   When will people in the USA wake up and demand that Congress change the law to allow direct foreign competition on domestic routes. The free market will quickly change the attitude of domestic carriers. Let each passenger decide where they want to spend their money. As an American living in Asia I see how much better run these airlines are and the service is unmatched.