Good news for autoworkers - people hate the scheduled airlines, and their fees keep rising.
Scheduled passenger airlines reported a profit margin of 6.8% in the third quarter of 2011, down from the 10.4% profit margin in the third quarter of 2010, Bureau of Transportation Statistics said today in a release of preliminary data.
As part of their third-quarter revenue, the airlines collected almost a billion dollars – $898 million – in baggage fees and $603 million from reservation change fees from July to September 2011.
Baggage fees and reservation change fees are the only ancillary fees paid by passengers that are reported to BTS as separate items. Other fees, such as revenue from seating assignments and on-board sales of food, beverages, pillows, blankets, and entertainment are reported in a different category with other items and cannot be identified separately.
In addition to baggage and reservation change fees, airlines reported ancillary revenue of $872 million from passengers and from other sources. This revenue category includes revenue from frequent flyer award program mileage sales and pet transportation fees (Table 1D).
Total third quarter 2011 airline revenue from all ancillary sources that can be identified, including fees and frequent flyer sales was $2.381 billion, with Delta Air Lines reporting the most, $814 million (Table 1E).
The baggage and reservation change fees from passengers combined with ancillary revenue from other sources constituted 5.8% of the total revenue of the 27 carriers that reported receiving ancillary revenue. Spirit Airlines reported the largest percent of operating revenue from ancillary revenue of any carrier, 31.1% (Table 1F). For additional Miscellaneous Operating Revenue data, go to BTS Schedule P-1.2.
BTS, a part of the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, said that the network airlines reported an operating profit margin of 7.1% as a group in the July-to-September 2011 period. The low-cost group’s profit margin was 6%, and the regional group’s was 2.5%.
