Charge!

Think you're getting a good airfare? Wait till the extra fees attack

William Michael Harnett, “Trophy of the Hunt,” at the Carnegie Museum of Art

I haven’t been overseas since before the plague. So I haven’t booked a flight to another country since pre-virus 2020, and that was to Mexico. But the airlines have been continuing their campaign to make flying as awful and unaffordable as possible—even after the near-death experience they had in 2020. AND the Airpocalypse that froze holiday travel last Christmas! Southwest flamed out most spectacularly because of its crappy old software, but the storms and newly confident mobs of fliers gummed up the works for other U.S. airlines too.

Tens of thousands of flights were canceled, hundreds of gate agents were tarred and feathered, zillions of furious, tearful phone calls were made from bleak, distant hubs, and who knows how many people missed sitting down to a glorious home cooked meal for a $16.99 ham and plastic sandwich on stale.

A little contrition would be nice. An admission of soul-searching, repentance, possibly an abject mass apology from all the airline CEOs to the flying public for treating us like unusually stupid livestock to be crammed into tiny spaces, detained for hours or days on end, and forcibly milked within an inch of our lives. A revived commitment to customer service and value for money.

OK, OK, breathe. Get off the floor—here’s a tissue. I know. I used to write a humor column. I can’t resist the belly laugh.

Airfares just keep climbing. But that’s not enough, so in 2008 they started charging for the privilege of bringing a few changes of clothes and a bottle of shampoo with you. If there was any justice in the universe, all checked-bag fees would be refunded if your bag doesn’t arrive promptly and unmussed on the promised belt by the time you’ve walked through the terminal and offloaded the bottled water you drank on the plane. If I can get a pizza in 30 minutes, I should be able to get my bag right smartly without it seeing more of the world than I have.

Outraged by the combination of a bag fee and the lack of a guaranteed arrival of said bag, I upped my packing game and began traveling without a suitcase. (Three things help that go smoothly: a very large “personal item”—I carry a Mom Purse that would hold a typewriter; moving from place to place at your destination so no one actually notices that you’ve had the same crunchy pants on through three national parks; and, where possible, choosing accommodations with laundry facilities.)

I’m very good at living out of a backpack and a Mom Purse for up to a week. I’m fine with not paying extra for better seats with more legroom or less bathroom traffic/aroma/drama. I’m 5’2”; my knees simply don’t require extra clearance. (Full disclosure: I usually try to fly Southwest, which, yes, has its problems but doesn’t do any of this dastardly drip-drip-drip.) I’m fine with bringing my own food, which will be better anyway. I’ll book early, grab a window seat in steerage, heave my backpack overhead and stuff the typewriter under the seat in front of me and THANK MY LUCKY STARS THAT I AM NOT ON BRITISH AIRWAYS BECAUSE WHAT THE HOLY HELL IS THIS??

Elisa Ventur image via Unsplash

It was my impression that British Airways was a good airline. It has an excellent reputation. It’s usually near the top of customer service polls. It didn’t fly out of my home airport until recently, so if I’ve ever flown British Airways, it was probably back when Robert Morley was doing their commercials—which is why I had no idea they had started doing this appalling, rapacious thing until just now.

Here’s what happened (and forgive me if you’ve known about this for a couple of years already; the trauma is fresh for me and I’m still processing it): After much comparison shopping and agonizing, I took a deep breath and booked a flight to the U.K. online on British Airways. It was marginally less financially ruinous than other fares, and I was keen to experience the British Airways red carpet on a trip to the airline’s home turf. When I got to the “choose your seat” screen, I looked around for the seats without prices on them, as I always do.

There weren’t any. There weren’t ANY.

That’s right: When you choose your seat, you don’t just pay extra for “premium.” You don’t just pay extra for more legroom, exit-proximity, or free-range knees. You pay extra, above and beyond the fare, FOR A CHAIR INSIDE THE CABIN OF THE AIRCRAFT.

Isn’t that what you thought you were buying when you agreed to the fare? How do you say no to this? “Oh! I guess the $850 I have committed to sending you is just to haul my body back and forth across the Atlantic bungeed to the wing! How much more is the luxury of one of your ergonomically disastrous, built-for-giants, barely-reclining chairs? $50? Each way? Next to the toilet? No, thank you: I’ll just lie on the floor.”

Ancillary revenue—charging you the other arm and leg for a bag, a meal, a carry-on, a seat, etc. after you’ve already paid an arm and a leg for the basic fare—is incredibly profitable. An airline ancillary strategy firm (if your child gets a job at such an outfit, disown that child forthwith) called IdeaWorksCompany reported that airlines earned an average of $27.60 in add-on fees per passenger in 2021, according to CBS News. All these nickels and dimes added up to 2021 ancillary revenue of $65.8 billion globally. Given that, I think we can expect to be charged soon for seatbelts, life vests, oxygen, cabin pressurization, and the seatback safety cards that show you how to open the exit doors.

This is, of course, the inevitable capitalistic continuation of the trend that began with ATM fees, “convenience” fees, “resort” fees, cleaning fees, and so on; if a business has something you want, it can get your attention with a price quote and then simply double it with BS fees and charges that are difficult or impossible to avoid. The government could probably do something about this feeding frenzy, but the government is largely owned by corporations and, let’s face it, we don’t like the idea of government interfering with commerce. We prefer to believe the market will make everything OK. So here we are, getting suckerpunched by the invisible hand.

Technically, you can refuse to buy a seat when you book, but you then face the prospect of showing up at the gate and taking potluck; the way they pack passengers onto planes, you’re likely to end up on someone’s lap in a middle seat with the blower stuck shut. That’s no way to cross a major ocean or continent; that’s frankly no way to cross a street. Just remember that if you do suck it up and pay, as I did, and your flight gets delayed or canceled or you get rebooked, you are entitled to a refund. (You’re never going to get an ounce of contrition.)

There must be some clever way to get the most out of this brazen airborne robbery. As a small person, perhaps the thing for me to do is pay the fare and then settle for a terrible, cheap, last-minute seat in the tail with a fold-out screaming baby—and put my suitcase there. Then I ride in the overhead compartment.

That way, my suitcase and I both get across the ocean for the advertised airfare. Exactly as we would have done 15 years ago.

Oh, wait. There’s never any room in the overhead compartment.