Several top airlines are giving their customers big lumps of coal by raising ticket prices for the upcoming holiday travel season.
 
Airlines are increasingly showing less and less consideration towards travelers and their finances during these tough economic times.  In addition to adding baggage fees for luggage and slowly increasing air fare because of fuel charges, several big name airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines and American Airlines, have cut back on issuing discount tickets for the holidays and are instead applying a surcharge for customers to travel during the holiday season.
 
According to several travel websites like Aviation Today.com and Bloomberg.com, American Airlines started off this chain reaction by applying a $10 surcharge to tickets purchased right after Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day on November 29 and January 2 and 3. United and Delta soon followed suit and also applied the extra fee.
 
For instance, the rates for travel on November 29 from Chicago’s O’Hare National Airport to New York’s JFK International Airport are a set $329.00 for a straight flight when booking with JetBlue, but when viewing the prices on the same day to the same place with United, prices range from $529.00 to $1,101.00 with the higher flights having two layovers. 
 
There have currently been no statements issued from any of these three airlines as to why they increased the fees for travelers.  It seems that the sharing and caring values of the holiday season are disappearing with big businesses and are being replaced with a selfishness concern of their own pockets by taking advantage of travelers during some of the biggest holidays for travel.
 
Hopefully all airlines will not join the take-advantage-of-the-customer bandwagon and take into consideration their customer’s finances during the upcoming holiday season.

-- Sophia Adem 

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