Ben Baldanza or Michael O'Leary?

[randomness]

Who's the king of airline fees?

Looks like Ben Baldanza, CEO of Spirit Airlines, is trying hard to compete with Michael O'Leary, CEO of Ryanair, in the race to tack on as many fees as he can imagine to the (artificially low) quoted airfare:

From Smarter Travel, via Yahoo:

A mere week after the Department of Transportation (DOT) introduced a series of passenger protection regulations, Spirit's rolled out a fresh fee in reaction to the rules. According to a press release issued by the airline, Spirit customers must now pay a $2 each-way DOTUC (Department of Transportation Unintended Consequences) fee to cover costs associated with the DOT's new regulations. The $2 fee went into effect on Tuesday, January 31.

One of the DOT's recently enacted rules gives flyers the option to change or cancel a reservation within 24 hours of booking; it's this law in particular that's given Spirit cause to charge extra. The airline's reasoning? By reserving seats for customers who have yet to commit, Spirit will lose inventory and, consequently, money—or so it says. Hence it's passing the purported cost on to its passengers.

So far, no one else is charging such a fee, so I'd just call that a Spirit Airlines price increase. A commenter asks:

What about "overbooking" and then "bumping"? Airlines sell tickets to more people than they have seats for, with the justification that they want the planes to fly full. The people that don't make the flight for whatever reason don't get a refund. That means the airline is getting paid DOUBLE for who knows how many seats and still charging "change fees" for the people who re-schedule.

CNN adds:

Extras on domestic flights include up to $40 for a carryon bag, up to $38 for a first checked bag, $5 to have an agent print a boarding pass and $1 to $15 for snacks or drinks.

Nonetheless, I think Michael O'Leary remains the champion in this competition. In fact, it's possible Baldanza got the idea for his fee from O'Leary. Back in March, Ryanair imposed an €2 "EU261 levy". From USA Today:

Ryanair, the airline notorious for its array of extra charges, has just launched an unavoidable new fee that will add euro2 ($2.80) to every one-way ticket.

Europe's biggest budget carrier announced Wednesday that its new "EU261 levy" has been designed to compensate the airline for European consumer laws that hold airlines, rather than airports or governments, liable for stranded customers' food and hotel costs whenever a natural calamity or air controllers' strike grounds services.

Traveling with a baby on your lap costs euro40 ($56) round trip. So does a single Ryanair-printed boarding card. Checking one bag costs at least euro70 ($100), two bags up to euro280 ($400). The right to stand in the fastest boarding line — important on an airline with no seat assignments — costs euro5 ($7).

To help sort consumers sort out the fees, the UK's Civil Aviation Authority has just released a document: "Comparing airline fees for optional extras and other charges" (pdf), with tables which "cover the top twenty-four airlines based on scheduled flights numbers operating in the UK, covering over 84 per cent of the passengers travelling to/from the UK." (updated January 30th, 2012)

I can't find a similar document from the American authorities, but there are some comparison documents compiled by private organizations. SmarterTravel has one (pdf, updated November 23rd, 2011), as does USA Today (updated March 10th, 2011).

Disclaimer: I have flown Ryanair (STN-DUB). I have not flown Spirit Airlines.

Comments

[cubes.livejournal.com]

I flew Spirit a bunch of years ago. It was a cheap way to get from an uncrowded airport here (Clearwater-St. Pete) to an uncrowded airport in NJ (Atlantic City). That was before all the baggage fees and whatnot, though.

I don't think I'd do it today, especially with the rugrats. Although Newark is a hassle sometimes, Tampa on this end is so nice, and JetBlue (+"Even More Legroom Seats", worth every penny for family travel) has been a consistently excellent experience with the kids.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have to say that all my trips on JetBlue have been above average.

I'm with you about Newark. It's like no one at that airport actually wants to work there.

[frotz.livejournal.com]

My consistent feeling about JetBlue over the last few years is that they're incredibly cancellation-happy in case of weather. Otherwise it's always been a good experience, but I avoid them on thin routes (which is most of them really) during winter because of that. (Though, honestly, flying the legacy carriers with even low-level elite status is surprisingly awesome, though possibly because my expectations are so low.) I wonder if that's an overreaction to leaving so many people stuck on the tarmac for so long a few years ago; I could also just be imagining it.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

flying the legacy carriers with even low-level elite status is surprisingly awesome

This is true. I think they're really prioritizing for their good--not even best, just good and better--customers. Flying on United with even low-level status was a completely different experience from flying (and this is a quote from a check-in agent) "with the hoi polloi".

I wonder if that's an overreaction to leaving so many people stuck on the tarmac for so long a few years ago

I suspect it may be. They got a lot of crap about that.

I've been lucky in that all of my JetBlue flights have been fairly close to on-time and none of them has ever been cancelled. But I'm flying out of their JFK hub to big markets, which I guess is about as good as it gets.

[frotz.livejournal.com]

I've been paying a bit more attention, and near as I can tell the population of fliers (on US domestic flights on legacy carriers) with some frequent flier status seems to run around 10% on average. (I'm basing this on the publicly-displayed upgrade lists, which presumably include anyone with any status at all and which seem to run about 10-15 people on the typical small jet which holds about 10x that.) If it's like the restaurant biz, where 10% of your customers are 90% of your business, concentrating on that lot makes some sense, though for instance I basically haven't flown United in years just because their coach experience sucks so hard so they're never even going to get me long enough for me to see their good side.

To characterize the strategy in general, I think they're looking to filter for the people who do any amount of regular travel at all to offer them a better experience, but they're much more focused on filling every single seat in the plane otherwise and the remainder get a crap experience delivered as cheaply as possible. Certainly the positive experiences I glow about now are actually pretty close to what was just the standard offering a few years ago. (Except the priority seat selection is still more awesome and actually what I like most; having my pick of aisle of bulkhead window seats makes me very happy.)

I fear the day when all airlines might switch to a frequent-flier program model (that Southwest and JetBlue already have) which is "spend a lot of money with us and get stuff", as opposed to "fly a lot and get stuff". (Usually along with points that basically equate to cash vs. the old flat-rate structure.) The former is actually better for price-no-object business travelers, though at the expense of people like me who are much more price-sensitive. Alas! I'll take the good times while I can though.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

I basically haven't flown United in years just because their coach experience sucks so hard so they're never even going to get me long enough for me to see their good side.

I hear you. I tend to think of my frequent flyer miles in terms of alliances: my United/Continental miles are Star Alliance, my American are oneworld, my Delta miles are SkyTeam, etc. As a result I end up flying on other carriers--using United miles on Lufthansa doesn't suck, for example--as well as accruing miles by flying on other carriers. Delta has been the least good for this for me as I've lost a few thousand miles, most recently on China Southern (HAN-CAN-PEK) and before that on KLM (AMS-OTP and return). Avoiding US carriers tends to improve the flying experience.

I still want to do the JFK-YVR run on Cathay Pacific again. It's kind of an afterthought to them, but it is one of the nicer ways to get to the Pacific Northwest, particularly as it appears to be the only nonstop.

Certainly the positive experiences I glow about now are actually pretty close to what was just the standard offering a few years ago.

Sad but true.

The former is actually better for price-no-object business travelers, though at the expense of people like me who are much more price-sensitive.

Yeah. My somewhat idiosyncratic experience of being one of those business travelers is that some price sensitivity is still there, but weirdly twisted. We were small enough that we got to do our own travel bookings, and the bean counter was always happy to have me save money with a Saturday-night stay when we had an event we could plan ahead for. I for my part was always happy to have my weekend be somewhere I didn't normally live. On the other hand, there were the occasional "go to J. Random city for 36 hours and give a presentation to a potential client on 72 hours notice"; those the company paid big bucks for what were essentially walk-on fares.

It's all somewhat odd to look at from the outside, but it was at least internally consistent.

[frotz.livejournal.com]

Have you looked at BA for where your oneworld miles sit? I really like their new short-haul award structure as applied to US domestic partner (AA or AS) tickets. (That said, I have absolutely not enough patience for the game of cross-optimizing n different plans, but I do have a giant pile of Avios points.)

Canadian used to have a JFK-YVR nonstop, back when there was a Canadian. (You know AC does YVR-EWR nonstop, right?) It feels like a lot of YVR direct flights have dried up in general, though. Alaska and JetBlue will still get you to Seattle nonstop, even from Boston.

Speaking of Canadian, I still look at Delta tails and match on Canadian. Red angle on blue, blue angle on red, whatever! Who thought that was a good idea?

[awfief.livejournal.com]

Agreed (except I'm at their Boston hub).

I haven't had a problem with cancellations (and I fly out every 1-2 months, usually to the left coast), but I did have a pretty consistent problem with them "losing" my luggage. They tend to leave as early as they can, and once I figured that out, I make sure that I'm at the airport 1:15 before departure if I'm checking bags.

(one time I arrived at the gate at exactly the time boarding was supposed to start. Then I heard "last call" for my flight. I asked what was up, they said everyone was there....I was like "but I wasn't on the plane yet!")