You’ll Now Pay More in Fees if You’re Flying Minnesota’s Biggest Airline
Hold onto your wallet-- fees are going up again if you're flying on the biggest airline in Minnesota.
The old saying about death and taxes being only two certain things could be amended to add something about fees increasing, right? Because prices... and fees... and taxes... seem to have increased on just about EVERYTHING over the past few years.
And it doesn't just *seem* like prices are going up, they *have* been going up in the years since the pandemic. According to Statista, the US inflation rate peaked in 2022 at a whopping 8 percent, after a rate of 4.6 percent in 2021. Rates were down in 2023 to 'just' 4.5 percent and are expected to be down even more, at just over 2 percent, this year.
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Perhaps that's why Minnesota's biggest airline just announced that it's now increasing this fee by 17 percent. Which airline is it and just which fee going up this time? Well, that would be Delta Air Lines, and the fee that's increasing is its checked bag fee.
According to the Associated Press (AP), Delta announced the fee increase on Wednesday:
Delta Airlines just boosted the cost of your first checked bag by 17%. The increase adds $5 to the previous, and not-exactly-insignificant, $30 fee for domestic flights. The charge for a second bag rose from $40 to $45.
While adding an extra $5 or $10 to your flight, depending on how many bags you're checking, likely won't break the bank, fees are BIG business for airlines. How big? Try over $33 BILLION dollars!
This study by airline consulting firm IdeaWorksCompany and car rental service CarTrawler said the top 20 global airlines raked in $33.3 billion in revenue from a combination of fees for carry-on bags, prices for checked luggage, and fines for overweight suitcases last year.
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That whopping amount is up 15 percent from $29 billion in 2022 and accounted for roughly 4.1 percent of global airline revenue in 2023, the study said. For what it's worth, though, Delta said that it hadn't raised baggage fees since 2018, and that it will use the additional revenue to help it 'keep up with unspecified rising industry costs,' the AP said.
Delta merged with Minnesota-based Northwest Airlines back in 2008. Northwest was one of those brands that was once huge here in Minnesota (kind of like Dayton's also was) but that now no longer exists. Which is the same for many of the following famous brands. Keep scrolling to see how many YOU remember!
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