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Airline Fees / Airfares / Airline News / Fuel Prices / Qantas / Australia Travel / → All Tags

Flying Down Under? Prepare to Shell Out Even More Cash

Flights over the Pacific will be tapping your pockets just a bit more. In response to a carbon tax in Australia and carbon trading schemes in Europe, Qantas has announced their fares will creap up in the near future. Do not fret, as there is still time to enjoy some world-class beaches and pet a koala or kangaroo before the change.

The red roo has announced an increase of no more than 24% in fuel surcharges for international and domestic flights. International itineraries increase by flat rate, while the domestic charge depends on the length of the flight. Unfortunately, with the high cost of jet fuel and taxes, Qantas is not alone in airfare hikes.

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Airline Fees / easyJet / Airlines / Airline News / Europe Travel / → All Tags

A New Year Brings a New Fee For Those Looking To Fly With easyJet

Just when you thought you had mastered the system of European travel aboard the vast network of low cost carriers, one of the major players throws a wrench in the works. Easyjet is changing up the way it charges for certain stuff, so you’re going to need a few more euros for your next trip—and maybe a calculator and notebook.

Honestly, it’s half the airline’s fault and half the government’s fault, since much like here in the U.S, the UK is changing the rules and regulations about airlines and their fees. If you're thinking about easyJet the biggest change is a new £9 administration fee—that's like $14—that more or less replaces the former £8 booking fee forced upon most everyone using debit cards to pay for the tickets.

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Airline Fees / Airlines / Airline News / Delta / US Airways / United / American Airlines / Europe Travel / → All Tags

That Flight to Europe May Just Cost a Few Bucks More

If your vacation piggy bank is almost filled to the top, you may need to tape a few bucks to the outside as travel to Europe just got a little more expensive. With the new year comes a new fee, as the European Union wants airlines to pay a little bit extra to offset greenhouse gas emissions. Obviously this is going to be passed along to passengers, and that’s exactly what’s already started to happen.

Last week Delta was the first airline in the nifty fifty to add another $3 to one-way fares to Europe, and now it looks like all the other major carriers have joined the party as well. United and US Airways were quick to ask travelers to chip in a few more dollahs dollahs, and then last but not least, American did the same exact thing.

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Travel News / Airline News / Taxes / Airline Fees / → All Tags

New Airline Barf Bags Really Show Their True Feelings on Airline Taxes

Are airline and airport taxes and fees making you sick? If so, the Air Transport Association is right there with you, as they’re plastering their message on the side of airplane barf bags.

Airline fares and fees are already high enough, and now the industry is speaking out in opposition of plans to hike security taxes and other charges. The new air sickness bags are pretty direct with their message, as they pretty much tell you where to place your stomach-turning displeasure.

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Ryanair / LCCs / Airline News / Airline Fees / Michael O'Leary / Toilets / → All Tags

Ryanair Threatens to Remove Toilets from Flights. Yawn.

We have to imagine there's some kind of countdown timer in the offices of Irish LCC Ryanair. The clock ticks down second by second, and when the buzzer goes off it's time for the airline's customers-are-there-for-abusing CEO Michael O'Leary to say something outrageous about airline fees or peeing or airline fees for peeing. That way Ryanair can solidify its "no frills" branding, before turning around and—per a BBC expose—"duping customers with hidden fees." Marketing is magic.

Apparently the publicity timer recently hit zero, because O'Leary just gave this grating interview to The Independent. His new proposal is to remove two of the three toilets in every Ryanair Boeing 737-800, and to use the resulting space to install a total of six new seats.

That would allow the airline to stuff 195 passengers into every flight, instead of the 189 to which they're currently limited, and so they claim they're asking Boeing to sign off on the safety issues. Like so many other Ryanair brainstorms, we doubt this will go anywhere.

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TSA / Politics Travel / Airport Security / Airline Security / Full-Body Scanners / Congress / Airline Industry / Airports / Airline Fees / → All Tags

Hey, Who's Up for a New TSA Security Fee So We Can Pay Down the National Debt?

You might remember last spring, when we threw something very close to a temper tantrum over TSA's request to increase the security fees that passengers pay with every ticket. We suggested that maybe the agency should stop wasting the money they already had—the hike was floated right after TSA started rolling out gingerbread man scanners as replacements for their predictably rejected billion-dollar full-body scanners—before they started coming after more of our money.

The idea that TSA is hopelessly wasteful was echoed this morning in a POLITICO story about the agency's budget, which included bits like "tendency to grab on to a new system before it's really validated" (no kidding) and "cycle of faulty equipment and failed programs" (everybody remember puffer machines?)

And yet that's not the most infuriating part of the story. It turns out that not only is an eventual $15 security fee increase back on the table, but—weirdly, unbelievably—it's not even all going to be spent on airport security. Which is kind of weird, because with "security" right there in the name, you'd kind of think that's what it would be for.

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Ryanair / LCCs / Airline News / Airline Industry / Airline Fees / → All Tags

Ryanair Brainstorms Imaginative Way to Fine Customers for Buying Tickets

Irish LCC Ryanair is notorious for inventing obscure fees that other less innovative airlines - which is to say, airlines that are not driven by hate for their customers - would simply never imagine. Among the most obnoxious is the airline's credit card fee, which is so tangled that even we couldn't avoid it back on a project where we were actively, professionally trying to avoid all fees.

So naturally, Ryanair has taken that exact fee and found a way to make it even more unpleasant. Yeah we know. We were surprised too.

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Airline Fees / Checked Baggage Fees / Baggage / Luggage / Baggage Fees / Airlines / Airline News / Air Canada / → All Tags

Air Canada Adds First Bag Fee for Flyers Between the US and Canada

At this point it seems like pretty much every carrier that could has already added a checked baggage fee, but there are a few more that haven’t yet betrayed global flyers. Remove Air Canada from that list, as it looks like they’re slapping flyers with a first checked bag fee as of October 11.

Our airline buddies north of the border will begin to charge $25 for the first checked bag for all tickets bought on or after September 7 for travel from Canada into the United States, and like we said, it’s for travel beginning October 11. If you’re checking two bags, things will at least remain the same, as it’s going to be $35 for the second bag.

Just in case you don’t have any scrap paper handy we’ll do the math for you—that’s $120 per person for a roundtrip flight when you check two bags like in the good ol’ days.

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Airline Fees / Ryanair / LCCs / Airline News / Europe Travel / Emergency Landings / Medical Travel / → All Tags

Ryanair Handles Mid-Flight Passenger Heart Attack Exactly How You Imagine

Any time Ryanair spokespeople begin to talk about following EU airline regulations—and by "following EU airline regulations" they mean "doing the absolute minimum as required by law"—you know that something has gone wildly awry.

Last time we saw them being defensive like this was last year, after they stranded Canary Island-bound passengers on the entirely wrong island in the midst of a thunderstorm. The airline's excuse? That according to EU regulations they were, in terms of physical distance, close enough.

So with Ryanair spokesperson Stephen McNamara telling a Swedish newspaper that flight attendants handled a medical situation according to EU requirements, you know that the story is going to be good. And by good we mean very, awesomely bad.

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Airline Fees / Tiger Airways / Music Travel / Videos / → All Tags

The Music Video That Got a Texas Country Singer His $2,500 Back from Tiger Airways

This month marks the two-year anniversary of the creation of the catchy tune "United Breaks Guitars," a YouTube video by a disgruntled flyer who had...you guessed it...his guitar broken on a flight and was unsatisfied with the airline's response. Since then, Twitter has been the preferred venue for venting, but a return to music videos was inevitable.

The newest crooner with a complaint is American Country singer Dale Watson, who composed his song "Tiger Airways, We Don't Careways" after Tiger charged him a $500 excess baggage fee for the 120 CDs he was taking to sell at a Blues Fest, and then lost them all and ignored his pleas for compensation.

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Premium Economy / Airline News / LCCs / JetBlue / Airlines / Seating / Even More Space / Airline Fees / → All Tags

More Speed and More Space on JetBlue Make for Happy Travelers, at a Price

It's a universal complaint of air travel that there's just not enough space. We're actually typing this from seat 11A, while being squashed in by a sleeping, burly man to our right and an all-the-way reclined passenger in front. Right now, we'd gladly pay extra cash for some more space, and thanks to the proliferation of Premium Economy options across airlines, this option is getting easier.

The latest airline to spiffy up their basic economy is JetBlue, who've done away with the "Even More Legroom" option to expand it into "Even More Space." And...wait for it..."Even More Speed." Let's investigate.

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Crimes / Airport News / Airline News / American Airlines / Airline Fees / → All Tags

Know Your Airline Fees: American Airlines Agent Busted for Swindling Passengers

We know it’s hard to keep up on the latest in airline fees, so that’s why we usually try to pass along as much as we can—from baggage fees to beyond—to keep you in the loop. Just make sure to know your fees before heading to the ticket counter, as apparently there are some sketchballs out there trying to swindle you right at the airport.

An American Airlines agent at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport has been accused of scamming a passenger out of like $120, as the employee claimed that the passenger owed some additional cash to make a change to an existing ticket. We might have fallen for things as well, as sometimes the charges for changes isn’t as cut and dry as bringing along like six more checked bags. However, this gate agent wanted things in cash, and that’s certainly a pretty big red flag.

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