Is a $9 Flight Too Good to Be True?

June 3, 2009 — -- How does a $9 flight sound to you? Sounds good to me, too -- and starting July 13 -- when JetAmerica takes off, every one of its flights will have nine seats for $9.

Except hang on a sec. That's $9 for the one-way airfare; then there are all those other standard one-way fees, including the 9/11 security charge for $2.50; the federal excise segment tax for $3.60; and, the airport fee of $4.50. No problem.

But that's not all. JetAmerica will also be charging a $5 each-way "convenience" fee to book the tickets online -- which personally, I don't find very convenient (and I feel the same way about the one-time $10 Call Center Fee, if you book by phone). Call me crazy, but I think "free" is a whole lot more convenient.

What else? Well, there's the now obligatory $10 per bag fee to check luggage (actually not too bad); but if I want to reserve a seat -- and not just a special seat, mind you, I mean any seat -- I'll pay another $10. Add the cost of a soda and a snack and suddenly the fees have dwarfed my bargain airfare. I'm paying more than four times the cost of the ticket in fees alone.

Are you a little tired of what seems to be the ol' bait and switch? Well get used to it.

For more air travel news and insights visit Rick's blog at: farecompare.com

Fees are taking over, and for good reason: bag fees alone brought in more than $1 billion in 2008, and experts say that could rise to $3.5 billion this year. And it couldn't have come at a better time, what with business travel down so sharply over the past six months.

What JetAmerica is doing is actually following in the footsteps of several carriers including JetAmerica founder John Weikle's earlier airline, the now-defunct Columbus-based Skybus (though to be fair, he wasn't running it when it went out of business last year). But maybe the airline JetAmerica is really mimicking is a foreign carrier: Ireland's Ryanair.

Has Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary ever meet a fee he didn't love? The latest: a $15 charge to print out your boarding pass in your own home or office. And if you don't print it out -- or forget to bring it to the airport with you -- you'll be charged another $60 as a "boarding pass reissue fee."