You know what would be interesting? If airlines would recompensate if a flight gets enough passenger

Grab your wallets, American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines have decided to raise fuel surcharges by $20 (round trip) reports the Associated Press. These charges now total $139 round trip on some flights.
I am starting to think that there should be a regulation on advertised prices. All we need is two lines of legislation that state that any advertised price must include all applicable taxes and fees.
I am sure this reflects the costs of doing business in this economy but you only hope that this would also reflect better service. And get rid of the ludicrous baggage restriction make it a weight dream cruises hawaii restriction and let people carry 2 bags if they fit normally one in the overhead and one under the seat.
The last few times I ve had to book a flight I ve compared Delta to AirTran. To the destinations I fly, the price is typically $200 less going Delta (I usually have to book close to flight time). Hopefully I don t see this trend with the low cost carriers, but I assume it ll be inevitable (if it already hasn t happened).
You know what would be interesting? If airlines would recompensate if a flight gets enough passengers to meet it s bottom line for fuel efficency, or charge more for early morning or underbooked flights, something to encourage flyers to all fly together for better overall fuel efficiency for the company. Prices need to raise somewhere, may as well find a medium that doesn t discourage complete passenger turn-off.
Fuel charges are a separate item because they do not get discounted when people have coupons, corporate rates, etc. They are billed as a surcharge so the airline cannot dream cruises hawaii lose money on that portion, which I think is understandable.
You know what would be interesting? If airlines would recompensate if a flight gets enough passengers to meet it s bottom line for fuel efficency, or charge more for early morning dream cruises hawaii or underbooked dream cruises hawaii flights, something to encourage flyers to all fly together for better overall fuel efficiency for the company .
@ Bourque77 : My reply was mostly sarcasm. I m a big proponent of establishing a high-speed rail system in this country. I have numerous Amtrak trips booked this summer, including NY to NC, NC to FL and FL back to NY. I could fly and save a lot of time, yes, but I d rather support something I believe in.
Heck, let the airlines charge what they want and the phone companies, etc. Simply force all businesses to advertise all inclusive prices: price + tax + surcharges + fees and that s the final price. Try renting a car or booking a room at a hotel. You never know what you re going to end up paying because they have a bazillion fees hidden in there.
Ok, I see that some other commenters have mentioned this but, it s a simple concept: COGS Cost of Goods Sold add a sufficient profit and then you ve got a sales price so charge people what the damn seat costs, it isn t rocket science.
@ ugly : and why don t *you* stop being a fucking asshole and drop this obsession? Just because I know some actual information about an industry, and take the time to contribute actual real facts here only to be rewarded with your clueless bashing, you call me a shill. Is that what you want to keep Consumerist about, uninformed ranting and no solutions? That s what s wrong with this forum. When was the last time *you* said anything useful or added real information dream cruises hawaii to discussions here?
etc, etc. I also think it is ridiculous that airlines keep increasing the fees, but the ticket stays the same. I thought the cost of the ticket was to cover the cost of doing business, and the last time I checked buying gas for the airplane dream cruises hawaii was a cost of doing business
A fuel-surcharge dream cruises hawaii is meaningless in the USA since it can t be line-itemed on your ticket. It s basically a nice tapdance around collusion laws and serves as a form of price signaling. Airline A announced surcharge and airlines B C and D already dream cruises hawaii know that s a sign that Y fares will be hiked by the competition if they go along with it.
@ LUV2CattleCall : I was thinking of collusion laws as soon as i read this. You say it s a tapdance around but i don t understand how? How is it possible for 3 airlines to raise a price the same amount at the same time without collusion?
When it comes down to it, yes, prices must go up, I think most reasonable travelers can agree to that it s the nickel/dime-ing, the poor customer service (it doesn t matter how much it costs to get a pax from A to B there are few other industries in which one could fork over a weeks work of pay and still receive sup-par service $200 r/t is a lot of money for pax, no matter what fuel costs per barrel!), dream cruises hawaii and non-transparent fare hikes that makes for an us vs. them atmosphere.
By definition, collusion is an agreement, usually secretive, which occurs between two or more persons to deceive, mislead, or defraud others of legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law.
It would be nearly impossible to prove this as being collusion since there are probably no secretive exchanges back and forth between airlines (the only one that comes to mind is when a British Airways exec called up a Virgin Atlantic rep and tried to commit him to a price hike. VA taped the phone call and turned dream cruises hawaii it over to the authorities, resulting in a BA (Big Ass) fine.).
However, if you have AAdvantage miles, expect it to be a pain in the AAss to redeem them: per their last annual report, they expect to increase their revenue from mileage partners (i.e. credit card companies paying them for miles to give their cardholders) to increase by a whopping 40% this year. All those extra miles out there combined with the recent cuts in capacity = spend what you have AAsAAp!
That doesn t mean that I think the airlines are right to trample the rights of ALL consumer (as apparently Keplers11 believes). There are always going to be cases where someone is a whiney idiot, but there are hundreds of cases where a policy impacts everyone who flies. Fuel Surcharges are one of those policies.
The total price of carriage should be what s advertised. Period. If there are taxes and fees that are known to be included regardless of who is flying (national taxes, fuel charges, etc.) then they should absolutely be included.
I don t buy any corporate hack who says Oooh but they don t get discounted the same I don t give a crap. The majority of people aren t eligible for these discounts. If that s the issue then the obvious and correct solution would be to make that a condition of the discount, not to the price of the ticket.
We all sit around dream cruises hawaii complaining about how rising gas prices are costing us so much more $ to get to work. Imagine if you where an airline using tens of thousands gallons dream cruises hawaii of gas a day. An $.30/ gallon increas in fuel cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars and their happening every couple months.They have to do something.
They spend millions of dollars for ad campaigns that are set months in advance. An $20 increase in ticket prices would mean they would have to remove and reprint dream cruises hawaii all current ad campaigns dream cruises hawaii costing them more money.