Summary

I am not defending commercial airlines for keeping airfares higher — that is, wherever they are higher — despite lower fuel costs. Airlines are not charities. They engage in a free market system; and as long as customers pay the airfares and fees for ancillary products and services, the airlines have no reason to reduce prices. Customers may grumble and complain; but as long as they keep paying, the airlines will keep charging — and profiting handsomely. Be honest: would you reduce airfares if you owned a commercial airline and you were raking in the profits?

As I indicated earlier in this article, fuel prices are rising — and significantly within a short period of time. When fuel prices skyrocketed some years ago, airlines started adding fuel surcharges to the price of an airline ticket — to the point of hundreds of dollars extra in egregious cases — and in many cases, fuel surcharges did not disappear when the price of oil dropped substantially. Rather, the name was changed to the nebulous moniker of carrier-imposed surcharge.

If fuel prices keep rising, what do you think are the chances that we will see the dreaded fuel surcharge return to the cost of airline tickets — alongside its predecessor known as the carrier-imposed surcharge?

I would not put it past the airlines to do just that — simply because my trust in them is not nearly as strong these days…

Photographs and composite image ©2016 by Brian Cohen.