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Airlines Dump New Fees on Fliers

Posted on: Friday, 13 June 2008, 06:00 CDT

By Dan Reed

Record oil prices' toll on air travel climbed Thursday as several airlines unleashed new fees, higher fuel surcharges and schedule cutbacks.

*US Airways said it will start charging $2 for a can of soft drink or juice, a bottle of water or a cup of coffee, starting Aug. 1. It's the first major U.S. airline to do that. Frequent fliers also will pay a fee to redeem miles for award tickets -- $25 to $50, depending on the destination, for travel booked on or after Aug. 6.

*US Airways and United said they will join American in charging $15 to check a single bag.

*Most big airlines matched American Airlines' $20 increase to domestic tickets' fuel surcharge, raising the total to $150 above the base fare.

*Continental said it will discontinue service to 15 U.S. and foreign airports by Sept. 3 and reduce frequencies to many other cities from its Newark Liberty, Houston Bush, Cleveland and Guam airport hubs.

*US Airways announced a substantial cutback in flights to Las Vegas on Sept. 3. US Airways, in addition to charging for non-alcoholic beverages, will boost its price for alcoholic beverages to $7 from $5.

It said passengers will have to pay cash for beverages when the fee kicks in Aug. 1, but it's working on getting in-flight credit card readers so they can pay with a card. The last notable effort by a carrier to charge for in-flight soft drinks came in the 1980s when People Express used an a-la-carte pricing system for virtually all services, including bag handling, beverages, meals and snacks.

Continental's cutbacks mean that capacity at its small Cleveland hub will fall by 13%, and its number of daily departures will slip to about 170 a day from the current 200. Its large hub in Houston, the carrier's hometown, will see capacity drop almost 8% and the number of departures fall to about 560 from the current 640 a day.

But capacity at its hub at Newark's Liberty Airport, where it is increasing service on routes to Europe where the chance of earning profits is much greater, will decline just 3.2%.

Continental previously had announced plans to scale back its capacity in the fourth quarter by about 11% vs. the same period last year. Continental also plans to eliminate 3,000 jobs

No. 6 US Airways said its fourth-quarter capacity will be down 6% to 8% from the same period last year and that its 2009 capacity will be down 7% to 9% from this year's capacity levels.

Those capacity cuts will lead to 1,700 positions being eliminated, including 300 pilot positions and 200 management jobs. The biggest job losses -- 600 -- will come at US Airways' mini-hub in Las Vegas, where it will stop most of its late-night flying. (c) Copyright 2008 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

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