I just read a newspaper article (sfgate) that airlines in the US are slowly charging fees for a lot of services that passengers used to take for granted. Some of the services include:
- Charging for checking your bag (some airlines used to charge only for second bag, more recently American Airlines has started charging for security-checking your first bag too.
- Charging for requesting an aisle seat/more leg room seats like the bulkhead/exit aisle seats
- Charging for meals on the flights
- Charging have increased for rescheduling tickets
Why ? The airlines say, the reason is the increasing price of oil. They have to meet their operating margins somehow ! Slowly airlines in India have started complaining about the price of oil as well. Will these charges come to India too? We already have charges for rescheduling and ‘no-meals’ on budget airlines. All we can do is to wait and watch.
Read the full article here.