If you are an investor you are certainly aware of the positive impact the 'extra' fees are adding to the bottom line of the airlines. From the recent filings for the year 2012, Delta collected an average of $7.44 per passenger and Spirit Airlines collected an average of $19.99 per passenger. As you might imagine this has all of the airlines scurrying about to see how to optimize fee collection, fee creation and squeezing the customer in any way possible. This equated to $865.9 million in baggage fees alone for Delta in 2012. At a time in history when the internet, faster communication through smart phones and businesses of all types are optimizing their operations and services, the airlines want to keep sticking it to their flying consumers with fees for changes in reservations and more. When you analyze this from a realistic standpoint what is the real cost to the airline if let's say anyone changes their ticketing two or three weeks prior to a trip?
This is not about a refund. It is a change. Let's add in the frequent flier factor and it is even more insulting as there is no reward for brand loyalty whatsoever.
Did you see the story about Bloomberg where customers were possibly being tracked by their usage of the Bloomberg units and information from this usage may have been utilized as source material for news stories or other reporting derived by this utilization? A typical Bloomberg unit subscription might run approximately $1,500 per month or close to $20,000 per year per user. Your use of the terminal is agreed to be for your firm or you personally and nothing to do with Bloomberg potentially analyzing what you are doing for their purposes.
How are these stories related? The system of values, truth and honesty is broken. It would appear each week and in the case of this last week, daily, there is another example of the total lack of values, truth and honesty.
Consider now the following totally fictional story about how the airlines are secretly discussing how to obtain more money from fees. By the way, was it mentioned earlier why the airlines really love the extra fees? Unlike the ticket for the airfare, the majority of these extra fees are not taxed in the same way the airfare is taxed. In the bowels of the secret boardrooms of airline corporate offices all over the world these are a sampling of the items being reviewed and discussed in order to generate more fees. You will be able to say you read it here first.
One of my favorite ideas is the passenger total weight concept, they are calling it TWC. The airlines, three major carriers have a similar version of this, will say this is for the health and good of the passenger as they will now have an additional incentive to lose weight. An approved height, weight, and age chart will be developed. Each passenger will be able to add an extra twenty percent to their weight derived from this chart. This weight will be their allowable weight limit or AWL. Now added to this will be the weight of ALL baggage. This would include the carry on. For Example, if you have one check in bag and two carry on bags, all three bags would be weighed with you. These bags in total are EYO in airline speak, it stands for, everything you own. There would be an allowance factor for each bag. Therefore a checked in bag would have a fifty pound allowance. A carry on bag would have a thirty pound allowance. The airline adds up your weight plus the twenty percent, the allowance factors per bag type and then subtracts these from the total actual, at the airport, weight of YOU and ALL of your bags. You now must pay for the overage in weight. The Government in theU.S.is being approached for a Federal Grant as the airlines want to prove this process will improve the general health of the population.
The next idea may be the one which will actually be implemented sooner than later.
The airlines want to charge anyone who has not flown a flight in a given year a specified fee. The fee would be determined by where you live, how much you drive or travel and your age. Here is the thinking by the airline. People who are avoiding flying are driving or taking a bus or a train. This flight avoidance is creating excess pollution and traffic jams. If more people would fly instead of drive, take the bus, or take the train, pollution would be reduced and traffic jams would be reduced. A request for a Federal Grant is being requested as this would be a program enacted to reduce pollution and therefore would be a 'green' initiative. At this writing the exact fee and how it would be collected are not yet clearly defined. One thing is for certain it is an annual fee for not taking a flight.
Here is the sad truth. Somewhere someone started an airline to transport customers from point A to point B, safely and on time and to provide a great experience with excellent customer service. Where did that go? This information was uncovered through imagination and dreaming and is not based upon reality or is it?
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