AIRLINE

Passengers brace for another summer of airline fees

Photo courtesy Frontier Airlines.
Photo courtesy Frontier Airlines.

It isn’t shaping up to be a good summer for air travelers who are trying to stick to a budget. And let’s be honest: Who isn’t watching their bottom line?

A few weeks before the traditional start of the busy travel season, United Airlines quietly raised its change fees on most discount fares from $150 to $200, rendering many of its tickets all but unchangeable.

American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and US Airways quickly followed.

Not to be outdone, Frontier Airlines announced that for tickets booked anywhere except on its Web site, it would raise its luggage charges and impose a fee of up to $100 for certain carry-on bags, the third U.S. carrier to do this. Most economy-class passengers will also have to pay $1.99 for coffee, tea, soda and juice.
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“There were angels all around me on that JetBlue flight”

Christopher Parypa / Shutterstock.com
Christopher Parypa / Shutterstock.com
Early boarding privileges are typically reserved for frequent fliers and passengers with obvious disabilities. But on a recent JetBlue Airways flight from Boston to Los Angeles, gate agents granted special access to a passenger whose need wasn’t that apparent, and perhaps even in violation of their own airline’s policy.

Elaine Regienus-Gravbelle, who was recovering from a double mastectomy and two other minor surgeries, was on her way to way home to Redondo Beach, Calif. She asked a ticket agent if she could get on the plane first.
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Will government cutbacks hurt travelers?

Tratong/Shutterstock
Tratong/Shutterstock
Although it may be weeks before the full effects of the government sequester are felt, many travelers say that they’re prepared for whatever’s coming down the road.

A mandatory 3 percent cut in the federal budget, which would translate into a 9 percent reduction in the nation’s non-defense discretionary budget for the rest of 2013, could see cutbacks in a wide range of government services, from air traffic controllers to airport security screening.

“The sequester will have a very serious impact on the transportation services that are critical to the traveling public and to the nation’s economy,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood declared before the sequester took effect on March 1.
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Have hotels taken their fees too far?

money2How do you know if hotels have gone too far with fees? When Jay Sorensen complains about them.

Sorensen runs a Shorewood, Wis., consulting firm focused on helping travel companies generate money through surcharges and is a self-described “fee advocate.” But on a recent hotel stay in the Azores, he needed his shirts and pants pressed. A hotel clerk assured him that it could be done the same day.
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5 ways airlines could improve customer service now

S. Buddha/Shutterstock
S. Buddha/Shutterstock
Let’s face it, airlines aren’t exactly known for their outstanding customer service. They haven’t been for years. And you don’t have to be Alison Jaerianna to know that.

It helps, though. After scoring a space-available upgrade to business class on a Delta Air Lines flight from Pittsburgh to New York, Jaerianna’s luck ran out. The airline canceled her flight at the last minute and rebooked her on another one.

When she boarded the aircraft, she found herself in an uncomfortable middle seat. In the last row.
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Are airlines bending the truth about weather delays?

snow stormA few minutes after Michele Loftin’s recent commuter flight from Sacramento to San Francisco pushed back from the gate, it made an abrupt U-turn and returned to the terminal. A United Airlines crew member told passengers that the aircraft’s de-icer test had failed, and the airline eventually canceled the flight.
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Up in the air: Who is torturing whom?

skySandra Mennitto watched a flight attendant torture a passenger for almost two hours on a recent trip from Chicago and Harrisburg, Pa.

Well, not torture in the Zero Dark Thirty sense of the word. But almost as painful, she says.

“A gentleman behind me had a full leg cast,” she remembers. For comfort, he had stretched the affected leg into the aisle. And that’s when the attendant stopped him.

“She talked down to him,” says Mennitto. “She said, ‘Just get it out of the aisle.’ In severe pain, he forced his leg around and held it [below the seat].”
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