Following on from the story about the amount of money that airlines make from add-ons, known as ancillary revenue, it makes a pleasant change to write that one airline, Monarch, has taken a different path from others and decided to cut the cost of using a debit card to pay for flights to nothing. Yes that’s right; there will be no charges added to your bill if you use a debit card to pay for any airline tickets if you book on Monarch.
Sometimes you might be forgiven for thinking that the basic price of an airline ticket is peanuts. The add-ons are those little bits here and there that suddenly glare out at you on the final page and cause you to take a deep breath and say, “but the fare was only a tenner!” when I started. Now one of the biggest airline ticketing systems providers, Amadeus, has completed some research which shows that last year these add-ons were worth €15.11 billion.
When is an airline fare increase not an increase? When it is an administrative charge because, theoretically, you needn’t pay it.
Have you ever heard such a load of old horsefeathers? It’s a blatant increase. The perpetrator of this slight-of-hand this time is easyJet which has nearly trebled the cost of using a debit card from £3.50 last September to £8 today. For credit cards it charges £12.95. Why such a charge?
For the first half of the year, airlines around the world have lost about £3.7 billion. It’s due to the economic downturn, the recession or whatever you want to call it. They have cut capacity, mothballed planes, deferred new ones, reduced staff and are looking at any way they can for reducing money. British Airways is even considering taking selected advertising on the website.
Supposedly, we now have transparency in the way airlines price their flights.In a pig’s eye we do.Legislation, codes of conduct, agreements, advertising standards watchdogs and a host of either consumer or regulatory watchdogs have made airline fares easier to understand. Well if that’s true, I am a Martian. What we have had is some clean up and then the airlines have promptly responded by finding ways around it.Not all airlines but some.Just like financial services companies have enough small print at the bottom of their
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In this blog and in many newspapers, ways that airlines make money have been listed. Charges for leg room, drinks, snacks, getting on the plane first, sitting next to a window or the aisle, baggage and the overall weight of your luggage have all been used as ways to empty your wallet.Now US Airways, yes that same airline that won plaudits last month for the superb landing by Sully on the Hudson River in New York, has decided to charge $7 if its’ economy class
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