Air Passengers to Pay €41 Billion in Fees This Year

New reports now show that consumers are likely to pay about €41 billion, or $58 billion, in so called ancillary charges this year. These predictions come at a very dangerous time for airlines, who had a less than profitable year in 2009.

These new fees will be on everything from checking in baggage to paying for seat locations. Although they will make up only about 12 percent of airlines’ revenue this year, experts at the center for Asia Pacific Aviation said that this is a percentage that will increase.

Airline insiders call these fees ancillary charges. This is because they are charges that are in addition to the standard price for a ticket. These charges have prompted a lot of complaints from consumer rights advocates. Ryanair, one of the first airlines to introduce a lot of these fees, was just recently described as puerile and almost childish by the UK’s Office of Fair Trading.

Despite this, the trend continues to grow and gain steam. The fall in ticket prices since the start of the recession has caused airlines to do what they can to cope with lost revenue. Just this month, four major United States airlines – Delta, Continental, United and American Airlines – all announced a $125 fee for any checked baggage on internal flights. Although European flag carriers like Air France, British Airways and Lufthansa have yet to follow suit, budget airlines such as Ryanair and Easyjet have been charging bag fees for quite some time.

Other methods of fee collection, such as assigning seats, flying pets and re-booking are also set to jump a lot from what the prices were in 2009. Some experts say that this could be bad and could mark the downfall of the airline industry. Right now the airline industry is in a very fragile spot, yet they continue to push passengers for more money. Many short haul flights are already being replaced by high speed rail.