Surprisingly Southwest Airlines made bank off fees in 2009
According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), US airlines made $7.8 billion in fees in 2009. This is a 42% increase over 2008. BTS says in a release “the airlines collected $2.7 billion in baggage fees, $2.4 billion from reservation change fees, and $2.7 billion from other ancillary fees, such as pet transportation fees and frequent flyer award program mileage sales.”
Delta brought in the most money with $1.65 billion in fees and surprisingly Southwest was fourth. Southwest might not charge for bags, but they do charge for other services like pets, unaccompanied minors and an early check-in option. Even before Spirit Airlines started charging for carry-ons, 21% of their total operating revenue came from fees — the highest of any other airline.
$7.8 billion is a lot of money. Passengers keep complaining about fees, but it is obvious that they keep paying them. I am not going to be surprised if more creative fees start showing up in the next few years.
Southwest Airlines is known for having special state livery airplanes. Yesterday, they showed off their newest one: Florida One. The plane will be taking a trip around Florida, showing off the new livery. The newest livery is one of 13 other special liveries already in the Southwest fleet: Arizona One, California One, Illinois One, Lone Star One (Texas), Nevada One, New Mexico One, Maryland One, three Shamu aircraft (SeaWorld), Silver One (celebrating Southwest’s 25th anniversary), Triple Crown One (recognizing Southwest’s top rankings for ontime performance, baggage handling, and Customer satisfaction), and Slam Dunk One (tribute to our NBA partnership).
Florida One required 32 people at the Boeing Company working three shifts over the course of eight days to paint. Over 46 gallons of paint and 16 different colors were used.
Last week Southwest Airlines had a commercial poking fun that passenger’s bags don’t fly for free on other airlines. The plane used in the ad was an AirTran Boeing 717 (even though the name was blurred out). Well, AirTran fights back with this funny (and creative) ad showing Southwest passengers as cattle and a little “yee-haw” action to boot.
Most people might have not realized that was an AirTran Boeing 717 used in the Southwest ad, but it is quite obvious that it is Southwest Airlines in the AirTran ad.
Man I love a good advertisement war. Southwest, it is your move :).
Dan Webb over at Things in the Sky asked today “What’s Wrong With This Southwest Ad?” and I found one of the two things off with it. Can you find both or even more?
For airline livery nerd, you can see the plane shown is an AirTran Boeing 717 (with logos and registration number hidden).
Had a lot of great guesses from people on the photo livery quiz. You can see the answers above. Most people made the same mistake I did on the last one. I thought it was USAir, but if you look closely this was a bare-metal plane from American, with Southwest’s livery painted on it. You can read more about these planes and see larger photos on Southwest Airline’s blog.
Winners of being big airline livery nerds:
* TxAgFlyer
* DCSpotter
* Patrick Olave
* Unregistered user #473787 on the Seattle PI
Nice job folks. There were quite a few others that only got one wrong.
