AP news wire

Delta Air Lines Inc. will start adding surcharges of $25 or $50 roundtrip on frequent flyers' free tickets to help offset soaring fuel costs.

The lower fee applies to flights in the U.S. and Canada. The $50 surcharge will be tacked on to trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flights, as well as on routes to the Caribbean and Latin America.

The change takes effect on SkyMiles award tickets issued starting Aug. 15.

"This was a difficult but essential decision in the face of record-high fuel costs," Jeff Robertson, SkyMiles managing director said. "We hope this is temporary, and should fuel prices subside from current levels, we will reevaluate this surcharge."

The Atlanta-based carrier also said it plans to introduce a new multi-tiered award program and other initiatives over the next two months.

And by "temporary," they mean permanent.

You'd think that they'd have come up with a way to pay for this with miles, to get more of those off of their books.

Simple - because none of their competitors are doing it, they lose business. Airlines are constantly trying to raise fares, with mixed success. It will stay this way until:
1. Fuel prices drop
2. Number of available flights drop further / airlines go out of business to where supply is slightly less than demand

wp746911 said:what's up with all this surcharge junk? Why don't they just sell the tickets for $1, then charge a pilot surcharge, stewardess surcharge, plane surcharge, fuel surcharge, etc etc. Just freaking raise you rates all ready- gas prices arent' dropping to $1 a gallon anytime soon...

rickt86 said:shank said:Simple - because none of their competitors are doing it, they lose business. Airlines are constantly trying to raise fares, with mixed success. It will stay this way until:
1. Fuel prices drop
2. Number of available flights drop further / airlines go out of business to where supply is slightly less than demand

wp746911 said:what's up with all this surcharge junk? Why don't they just sell the tickets for $1, then charge a pilot surcharge, stewardess surcharge, plane surcharge, fuel surcharge, etc etc. Just freaking raise you rates all ready- gas prices arent' dropping to $1 a gallon anytime soon...


A huge reason they can not raise the prices is because southwest has fuel hedges and is paying like 60$ a barrel, while noone else really has any, and is paying 140. The hedges end at summers end, so between the cut backs, and end of hedges, you can expect ticket prices to go through the ROOF, i would buy now, unless you think gas prices will drop alot

That is untrue. Southwest has 65% of their fuel hedged at $49/barrel for all of 2008. The have over 50% hedged at $51/barrel for 2009. http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/30/business/fi-southwest30
and http://www.247wallst.com/2007/04/southwest_airli.html