Congressional report details junk fees in air travel

For two decades airlines have used and profited from their “unbundling” strategy—charging separately for individual products and services that were once included in the price of a plane ticket. Just in time for the holidays, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, chair of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), last week released a Majority staff report documenting these individual fees – junk fees – in air travel.

The report documents additional charges imposed on consumers to fly with checked bags or carry on, to select seats, or “to sit next to their minor children.” Seat fees alone generated $12.4 billion in revenue for the airlines – American, Delta, United, Frontier, and Spirit – between 2018 and 2023, the report says. The added fees, tacked-on throughout the purchase process, make it difficult for consumers to predict and to compare ticket costs across airlines.

Among other findings, the report disclosed that some airlines pay incentives to gate agents for bag policy enforcement, use algorithms to set fees, and are looking to engage in target pricing based on customer information. The report comes a year after the congressional subcommittee launched an inquiry into the airline industry’s junk fee practices.