First bags fly free at Southwest Airlines but the low cost carrier collected more ancillary-fee revenue in the fourth quarter than did Northwest, United, Continental, AirTran, JetBlue and Alaska Airlines.
At $157.2 million, Southwest came in fourth among U.S. airline ancillary-fee collectors, according to a tally released May 3 by the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
So, when it comes to “nickel and diming,” Southwest is taking a clever marketing tack with its free-bag mantra, but behind the scenes it is aggressively collecting fees for services unbundled from the basic fare.
As has been the pattern, Delta was the fee king at $425.7 million, far ahead of #2 American at $253.3 million.
Read the full story at:http://www.tnooz.com/2010/05/03/data/southwest-airlines-tops-continental-united-northwest-in-ancillary-fee-revenue/
