You Won’t Believe Where Majority Of Airlines Are Getting Their Billions From [Video]

If you have been feeling that airlines are getting the better of you, you are absolutely right. Operators are minting, not Millions, but Billions from gullible passengers and that too when they aren’t actually paying for more space on the airplane.

Airlines are making tons of money from such seemingly trivial matters like Cancellation Fees. However, the real money spinner is ‘Bag Fees’. These two items in your air ticket are not that obvious, but collectively airlines made well over $6 Billion last year. Airlines collected a total of $3.35 Billion from Baggage or Bag Fees and $2.81 Billion in Reservation Change or Cancellation Fees. In all, all the airlines collectively managed to earn $6.16 Billion from passengers. Moreover this is a consistent money–earning avenue as they made away with $6.04 Billion in 2012.

These ancillary fees helped the 26 Passenger Airlines in the US boost their net profit to $12.7 Billion up from $98 Million in 2012. For the airlines, ancillary fees like bag fees are essential to their profitability. Just how important are they is quite evident from the fact that the same is up an estimated 89% from just three years ago, according to an October 2013 report by IdeaWorks. Delta Airlines was the greediest of the bunch making $833 Million last year, according to official data released by the U.S. Department of Transportation. But in all fairness, Delta Airlines is still one of the top airline operators and does allow one free carry–on.

Nonetheless, these fees have now become so vital to the economy of the airline operations that they won’t do away with the same anytime in the near future, unless the Government steps–in. On the contrary, greedy airlines are silently increasing the bag fees.

This has gotten so bad; Frontier Airlines is apparently trying to go more fees dependent and had the audacity to announce that whoever wanted to store their carry–on luggage in the overhead–bin must shell out $50 extra. Alaska Airlines has already jacked up its fee for checking bags to $25 since last year.

Just how damaging are bag fees? According to experts, sneaky bag fees can add as much as $100 Dollars to the ticket price if the flyer is not careful enough. Hence is absolutely critical to keep a close watch on the finer details of the air–ticket and ensure minimum amount of luggage is carried into the cabin to avoid those wallet damaging bag fees.

[Images via Bing]