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NEW YORK -- Imagine two
scales at the airline ticket counter, one for your bags and one for you.
The price of a ticket depends upon the weight of both.
That may not be so far-fetched.
``You listen to the airline CEOs, and nothing is beyond their imagination,''
said David Castelveter, a spokesman for the Air Transport Association, a
Washington, D.C.-based trade group. ``They have already begun to think
exotically. Nothing is not under the microscope.'' He declined to discuss
what any individual airline might be contemplating, including charging
passengers based on weight.
With fuel costs almost tripling since 2000, now accounting for as much as
40 percent of operating expenses at some carriers, according to the ATA,
airlines are cutting costs and raising revenue in ways that once were
unthinkable. U.S. Airways Group Inc. has eliminated snacks. Delta Air
Lines Inc. is charging $25 for telephone reservations. AMR Corp.'s
American Airlines last month became the first U.S. company to charge $15
for one checked bag.
After U.S. airlines reported combined first-quarter losses of $1.7
billion and crude oil jumped to a record $133.17 a barrel on May 21,
almost double from a year earlier, fares based on a passenger's weight
may be a logical step, said Robert Mann, head of R.W. Mann & Co., an
aviation consultant based in Port Washington, New York.
``If you look at the air-freight business, that's the way they've always
done it,'' he said. ``We're getting treated like air freight when we
travel by airlines, anyway.''
``Laughter aside, the airlines are just in a desperate situation,'' said
David Swierenga, president of consulting firm Aeroecon in Round Rock,
Texas, who dismissed weight-based ticket sales and steep price increases
as unrealistic.
Since December, eight companies have ceased flying, largely because of
fuel costs -- MaxJet Airways Inc., Big Sky Transportation Co., Aloha
Airlines Inc., ATA Airlines, Skybus Airlines Inc., Eos Airlines,
Silverjet Plc. and the charter- flight operator Champion Air. Air Midwest,
a division of Mesa Air Group Inc., is ceasing operations this month.
Airlines may report combined losses of $6.1 billion this year, the worst
since 2003, the International Air Transport Association said yesterday in
Istanbul. Swierenga said the only meaningful way for them to reach
profitability is to idle a portion of their fleets, which would allow
them to reduce costs associated with fuel and labor.
``The solution lies in capacity cuts,'' he said.
SOURCE: Bloomberg
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