Airline extra fees: $2 billion in three months

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Airline fees are definitely not going away anytime soon – not after the second quarter it gave the airline industry. Carriers in the United States raked in $2.1 billion in fees and extra charges in the second quarter of this year, a 13 percent year-over-year surge. And, it was good enough to deliver the sector’s first profitable quarter since 2007.

Well, here’s the worst part for you: most of it came from checked baggage fees. This annoyance was good for $893 million in the second quarter of 2010, a gain of 16 percent from the second quarter of 2009. Reservation fees were good for $594 million, with ancillary revenue (e.g., frequent flier mileage sales and pet fees) reaching $618 million.

Delta benefited most from the fees that passengers hate most, at $682 million. American Airlines and US Airways were next.

[photo by cliff1066 via Flickr]

Trucker-style pilot gets nine months in jail

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Stephen Sharp was pushing for probation. The former US Airways Express pilot was nailed by the feds for selling “selling a powdered drink mix over the Internet that he claimed was ‘100 percent’ effective in helping drug-using truck drivers, pilots and train engineers pass federally mandated drug tests.”

Yes, it was a genius move for a man in a highly regulated profession … which is why the judge gave him nine months behind bars for failing to grasp “the magnitude of the potential harm” of his actions.” Sharp lost his job after the feds raided his lab. So, it’s hardly surprising that the judge cut off Sharp’s lament with the question: “If you think those years were hard, how do you think you would have felt if a pilot was able to disguise his intoxication with your product and crashed a plane killing 250 people?” Cercone asked.

[photo by amandabhslater via flickr]

NYC pulls trigger on mass execution of geese

by Tom Johansmeyer on

For the past several weeks, the last thing you’d want to be is a goose in New York City. Hundreds of them have been “euthanized,” in an attempt to keep the skies safe. You may remember the impact that geese can have on a plane from a year and a half ago, when an unlucky bird forced a US Airways plane out of the sky and onto the Hudson River.

According to the Associated Press:

Carol Bannerman, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, said Monday the department was asked to remove Canada geese from more than a dozen locations within seven miles of city airports.

In Brooklyn‘s Prospect Park, for example, around 400 geese were rounded up and killed using carbon dioxide – “because they are a risk to planes,” the article continues. Last summer, the body count hit 1,200, which is what it’s expected to reach this year.

[photo by mikebaird via Flickr]

Summertime, and the maggots are easy

by Alex Robertson Textor on

It’s summertime, which means that for people in many parts of North America, certain types of vermin are particularly well-represented in kitchen cupboards, bathroom corners, basement nooks and, heck, just about everywhere. Mosquitoes, cockroaches, water bugs, and other little flying and scurrying insects make their presence especially well known across North America during the summer.

But maggots? Maggots, thankfully, we see less frequently than garden-variety mosquitoes and water bugs.

Passengers on US Airways flight 1537 on Monday from Atlanta to Charlotte were not so lucky as the rest of us. Flies and maggots materialized in the cabin before take-off. Some passengers were even rather terrifyingly rained on by maggots after more decaying flesh. Entomophobes everywhere will certainly find the cell phone video of the experience, taken by a passenger, to be seriously stomach-turning.

Apparently some rotting meat was responsible for the presence of maggots and flies on 1537. Thankfully, the airplane did not take off as scheduled. Passengers were removed from the plane, and a cleaning crew then boarded to scrub the overhead luggage areas clean. The plane then flew on to Charlotte, where it was fumigated. As disgusting as the event originally was, it appears to have been dealt with properly by US Airways.

Beyond the mere curiosity of the event, there is some irony in the fact that it comes during one of the best weeks for press for the airline in recent memory. US Airways has gotten great coverage this week for its ultra-cheap Twitter-publicized fares.

(Image: Flickr/asrusch)

Airline law ends long Tarmac delays, fine threat improves performance

by Tom Johansmeyer on

The world didn’t end. No logistical disasters emerged. In fact, everything got a hell of a lot better.

Several months ago, the prospect of a maximum three-hour tarmac delay had the airline industry proclaiming the arrival of the four horsemen. They claimed that it would severely disrupt the industry to have to give passengers the option of getting off the plane would lead to chaos. People would be furious by a lone passenger wanting to bring the plane back to the gate, and crews would be forced to operate within the constraints of customer demands (you know … like other businesses).

Well, the airline industry doesn’t appear to be any worse off than it was. In fact, it looks like the new three-hour rule is having a positive effect. Three-hour tarmac delays have effectively disappeared, and on-time arrivals have improved overall. Everything seems to be running better than it was before the airlines faced fines of up to $27,500 per passenger.

How big a different did it make?Well, only four planes sat on the tarmac for more than three hours in April. In March, 25 hit that mark, and April 2009 had an astounding 81 planes on the tarmac for that long.

So, you’re probably wondering if the airlines stacked the deck, canceling flights to protect their stats and mitigate the risk of having to yank planes back to the gate or shell out big bucks fines. Year over year, the DOT reports that cancelations fell approximately 50 percent, with only 3,637 of 529,330 flights getting chopped.

Overall, on-time performance for the 18 airlines that report to the U.S. Department of Transportation climbed to 85.3 percent in April – up from 79.1 percent in April 2009 (and better than March’s 80 percent. Most of the late arrivals were caused by aviation system delays (e.g., bad weather or heavy traffic).

Efficient use of New York airspace and generally calm weather contributed to the improvement. LaGuardia‘s on-time rate surged to 87.4 percent from 67.4 percent. JFK showed a similar improvement – from 67.3 percent to 83.5 percent.

U.S. Airways led the pack in on-time performance among major airlines and followed Hawaiian and Alaska Airlines in the total market. American Airlines was the bottom of the barrel for the large carriers, with its sister carrier, American Eagle, sucking most among all airlines.

Let’s do the math on this. Holding airlines accountable and offering up the threat of hefty fines for mistreating passengers didn’t jeopardize their ability to operate. If anything, it led to improved results. For once, it seems, the government got it right. If that sounds weird, think of an airline that takes off and lands on time. Weird, right?