Fees we hate make millions for airlines — change, cancellation and baggage fees

With the advent of baggage fees, there has been a lot of attention on the revenues generated by checked baggage. However, an older set of fees, the change and cancellation fees are racking up even more revenues for airlines.

At American Airlines, change and cancellation fees bring in 7.5 percent more money than the dreaded baggage fees. The airline raked $116 million into their coffers from change and cancellation fees while they only made $108 million during the first quarter of this year.

These fee collections are rising regularly, even with a drop in passengers and with the airlines shrinking their schedules. Are passengers changing plans more often?

The short answer is no. The airlines are raising the change and cancellation fees by whopping amounts.

The legacy carriers have always been expensive when it came to changing plans and most raised change and cancellation fees by 50 percent last year. But now, some of the low-cost carriers are getting into the act. JetBlue just increased their change fees from $40 to $100 for ticketing online. That’s an increase of 150 percent and their percentage of change fees as part of overall passenger revenue is among the highest in the country.

With the Department of Transportation (DOT) taking a hands-off approach to fees and computer systems failing to provide good comparable inclusive flight costs, airlines are piling on fees. They can remain hidden far deeper into the ticketing process and often passengers assume they won’t add up to that much.

That’s an assumption that has cost passengers plenty of money over the past year. These new statistics now being reported by the DOT are making the amounts far more visible.

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