Airlines Take In Almost $800 Million In Baggage Fees In First 3 Months Of Year

Airlines pulled in almost $800 Million dollars in baggage fees alone, in just the first 3 months of the year. When the airlines are making this kind of money, I think there might be a problem...for us, the traveler.

Almost all airlines are charging customers baggage fees, except for Southwest Airlines. Now that means every time you fly and take luggage with you, you get charged a fee, usually
$25 for your first bag and $50 and up for each consecutive bag. This is, of course, on top of the fees you are charged for your flight ticket, reservation fees, and whatever else they can think of to charge you for.

Some airlines are even charging you to use a pillow or blanket on lights. It's really gotten ridiculous the amounts of money the airlines are bringing in, yet they still say they are in the red. How, can that be? If you make almost $800 million in just 3 months and there are 12 months in a year that comes to over 9 billion dollars, that's billion with a "B".

Now that almost $800 million,and I say almost, because it's easier to figure than the actual figure which was $783 million, up 2% from the same time last year.

Those reservation fees I mentioned earlier, they raked in $592 million for you to change your plan. Now some of you may not know this but just to change your flight reservation it can cost $400-$500 for them to push a few buttons on a computer and change your flight.

I think the government is letting this industry gouge the public just like the oil and gas industry is doing. The rising fuel costs is what actually spurred the airlines to start charging for baggage in the first place. Where does it stop, you have to travel, whether it's by plane or car. The industry has been under investigation recently for hiding prices when you book online and some airlines have been investigated for price fixing too. I think further investigations should be taking place into ridiculous prices being charged to the public.

"Where does it stop?" is the main question!