The next hidden fee – Spirit Airlines to charge a fee for buying a ticket?

by Scott Carmichael on

Nope – this is not an April fools post. Spirit Airlines, one of the cheapest of the US low cost carriers is working behind the scenes to introduce a “passenger usage fee” which is just a snazzy way of describing a fee to cover the costs of you buying a ticket.

That’s right – Spirit Airlines is going to charge you, in order to charge you. The fee is rumored to be $5 or $10, and will apply to any booking made anywhere other than the Spirit Airlines ticket desk at your airport.

The whole thing sounds like a joke gone bad, but it is actually the result of negotiations with the Department of Transportation.

Spirit had initially launched a whole lineup of ridiculous fees last year, including what they called a “natural occurrence interruption fee”; a $2.50 fee to help recover the costs involved with storms and other weather related incidents. The DOT was not amused, and Spirit was handed a $40,000 fine.

Spirit clearly learned their lesson, because this time they are negotiating with the DOT how to implement these new fees. One area of concern is whether Spirit will be forced to include the fee in all their advertising, or whether they can keep it hidden until the last moment, usually when you and I pull out our credit cards. The end result may be that they need to advertise it on their own site, but that third party booking sites won’t be forced to mention it until the last page of your booking process.

In my opinion, the whole fee process is just becoming silly – yes, we consumers are always looking for nice cheap tickets, but we are not entirely stupid. When a $100 ticket becomes $200 after all the fees and taxes, we know we are not getting a good deal. Fingers crossed that the DOT keeps us in mind when they finally approve this new fee racket.

Check out these stories from the airport checkpoint!

Cabin pressure drop sends Brits to Athens, not Egypt

by Tom Johansmeyer on

A charter flight bound for Egypt made an emergency landing in Athens when cabin pressure dropped. The flight originated in Manchester, England and carried 192 passengers. Five passengers complaining of ear pain were taken to a local hospital as a precaution, according to the Greek state television station. No other injuries were reported.

Jet2.com, the low-cost carrier operating the flight, has said through a spokesman that it was sending another plane to Athens to pick up the stranded passengers and complete the journey. When’s the plane coming?

“Sometime during the night” …

Reports have included no mention of whether the passengers received free meals, like those aboard a flight that crashed at London’s City Airport last month. One can only hope that stomach contents lost are going to be replaced.

Airlines losing less of our baggage – for the wrong reasons

by Scott Carmichael on

Here is (what should be) a great piece of news from the aviation world – domestic US carriers are losing fewer of our bags.

A staggering 1.3 million bags were not lost when compared to statistics from the previous year.

Normally, airlines would have a good reason to be proud of this result. It could be because they are paying more attention to their baggage procedures, or simply that their staff are learning to be more respectful of our belongings, but sadly, the reason they are losing less luggage has a far more logical explanation.

People are not checking as many bags.

The airlines, in their infinite wisdom decided that checking a bag is a luxury that should be sold to us, in addition to our ticket fee.

Too many passengers refuse to pay this fee, so as more people drag all their luggage on board the plane, fewer bags have to be placed in the baggage hold. It all makes perfect sense.

American Airlines was the clear winner with a 26% improvement over 2007. But of course, American Airlines was also the first of the major carriers to introduce the pay-to-check baggage scheme.

Eventually, the whole thing will probably come back and bite the airlines in the ass. As more people carry more stuff on to the plane, departure times will get delayed, flight attendants will have to spend more time finding space for bags that don’t fit in the overhead compartment, and passengers will still get their bags checked for free when the crew have to do a gate check for any bags that can’t be stored in the cabin.

Reinforced cockpit safety doors may have had opposite effect in plane crash

by Scott Carmichael on

File this one under “tragic”.

According to eyewitness reports who were involved in the recent accident of Turkish Airlines flight 1951, the first officer of the aircraft was alive, but badly injured when the plane hit the ground.

Apparently, it took rescue workers 40 minutes to reach him, by which time he had passed away. The long delay was caused by the reinforced cockpit door, put in place after the 9/11 hijackings, and is of course intended to keep would-be terrorists from reaching the flight deck.

The door was so hard to penetrate, that rescuers gave up and cut a hole in the ceiling of the cockpit to reach the crew.

It’s a clear case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t – you need to keep the bad guys out, but if this makes it impossible to reach the crew during an accident it pretty much defeats its purpose.

I’m sure more news about the cockpit door will be released from more official sources during the investigation, and I am curious what pilots have to say about this incident.

Ryanair – to pay to pee or not to pay to pee?

by Scott Carmichael on

Oh Ryanair, how you mock us.

Yesterday, every news source in the world (well, many of them) were abuzz with the news that Ryanair exec Michael O’Leary announced he’d be introducing coin operated bathrooms on his planes.

Normally, when an airline owner announces something on the news, you take it seriously. Apparently that is no longer possible when it comes to stuff O’Leary says.

The latest update in the “paid bathroom concept” comes from a Ryanair spokesperson who’s actual statement was:

“Maybe O’Leary was just taking the p*ss this morning. Michael makes a lot of this stuff up as he goes along and while this has been discussed internally there are no immediate plans to introduce it”.

Someone might want to keep O’Leary away from the press for the time being, before you know it, he’ll be saying something really stupid like that he wants his flight attendants giving free oral sex on his upcoming transatlantic flights.

Check out these stories of booze gone bad in the skies