Remember when airlines stopped offering complimentary food on their flights? That's barely something anyone talks about anymore given the various price hikes that have taken place this year. American Airlines and Delta Airlines are responsible for the most recent hikes and announced their decision to raise fuel surcharges by $20 round-trip. That doesn't mean fuel surcharges are $20 in total, it just means they're bumping up the existing surcharges and on some flights that amount is almost equal to ticket fares.
According to the New York Times some airlines are charging more than $100 round trip for domestic flights for fuel fees alone, and at least $300 for overseas flights lasting nine hours or more. Tim Winship, editor of SmarterTravel.com didn't sugar-coat the situation when he said, “If summer travelers are expecting to see the same sorts of air fares they saw last summer, they’re going to be very unpleasantly surprised. With both the net air fares and what people end up paying because of the additional fees, everything is going to be higher in summer 2008 than in summer 2007.”
Tod's
Ralph Lauren
In Puncto
What are they spending this money on anyways? You have some flights with 400 seats and passengers paying close to $1000 each. Where is the money going? Maybe if these assholes didn't pay their CEO and top dogs an absurd amount of money, to do nothing, and leave them with $100 million dollar retirement plans, they would be able to make a profit. This is ridiculous!
1This is why we're buying a hybrid car...I'd rather take more time and drive twelve hours to see my family than fly and spend a ridiculous amount of money on a plane ticket!
2I was making plans to go to California, just me and my son, and the tickets came up to close to $2600 round trip total. NO WAY!!!
3People living outside of the US always wonder why it's possible that many Americans have never been on a plane ... I'm sure this is a huge contributing factor.
4
5i can understand that they need to cover the rising cost of feul on their end but to raise costs for airfare $300+ for overseas flights? really? i won't be able to afford to go anywhere anymore....driving is going to be out of the question for domestic stuff cause gas is high for us to pay and now airfare is getting out of control. UGH!
6This is ridiculous, and will backfire as so many people just choose not to fly and the airlines have less volume and need better margins... they've taken all the amenities and just keep charging more. I'm making almost only local destination vacations that I can drive to this summer (yay Mexico!)
7Unbelievable, 300 increases. I can see in reality why they would raise their fares but the prices are a little too high; especially with the economy (its not like people are making more money or some people do not even have jobs). I can see 50 per person but if you have a flight and everyone is paying 100+ each, is that money really going to the increase of fuel. I could even see if the money was going to paying their employees a better wage. I do not mean CEO's, I mean the lower than lows.
8These rate increases seem a little ridiculous after reading http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/BusinessTravel/wireStory?id=4767650
$100 seems like a lot when there are other things that can be done.
9wow. i just looked at flights going back home, and they're twice as expensive as usual--in fact, off-peak tickets are the same price as the tickets i bought to go home right befor christmas! geez.
10I am going to Taiwan during July and thankfully bought my tickets enough ahead of time; now the price increases have brought ticket prices up A LOT!
11If only they worked on being more efficient rather than constantly raising their prices...
12I bought my tickets to San Francisco and San Diego a few weeks ago. I found that using the graphs on farecast.com to be very useful in deciding when I want to leave on vacation!
13Tiff58, what a novel idea.
14Thanks sweetpea, I'm adding that to my bookmarks!
15It is crazy and deplorable but people will still pay! The flights will be jampacked this summer.
16I got hit with about $400 worth of fuel surcharges last month on a round-trip flight from Tokyo to Frankfurt. On the other hand, it was with Asiana Airlines (a Korean company) and the service was excellent even in economy class. The attendants were exquisitely polite, they provided a hot meal with steaming towels on the short 2-hour hop from Tokyo to Seoul, gave us free travel kits with toothbrushes and slippers on the 11 hour flight from Seoul to Frankfurt, and even the economy seats had a well-stocked video on demand library. It was absolutely nothing like flying with an American company. (For that matter, I found even the European airline Ryanair -- the cheapest anywhere -- to be more polite and efficient than what I've come to expect in the US.) I wish the fuel charges weren't so high but I'm appreciative that the staff did their best to make it a pleasant experience nonetheless.
17Wow, inertia, I can't believe the fuel surcharges were that much PER person! But that is good that you had a pleasant experience.
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