airfare taxes/fees

[riddler 0]

OK - lately, I've been trying to limit my posts to skydiving related, and this is kind of related, because my g/f and I are going to to see her family in California (bay area) and jump with her sister at her DZ, then her dad at her father's DZ.

So we just bought two tickets from Denver to San Fransisco, and the taxes and fees are about 28% of the ticket price! Is it just me, or have taxes/fees gone up quite a bit in the last few years?

Here's the breakdown for two tickets:

Basic Fare (USD): 480.00
Tax: 76.00
Processing Fees: 19.00
Automation Fee: 37.86 (purchased on-line)

So what's the deal? Obviously, with "automation fees", we're just getting blatently screwed - I make Internet apps for a living, and they can be cheap or expensive depending on how they are set up, but for the volume a travel agency does, it shouldn't cost that much per ticket.

Have taxes gone up because of all the wonderful new security measures at our airports that work so well?

I was hoping that since there's a lot of pilots and people that work in the industry here, someone would know why it's so expensive.

Listen to me - I sound like an old person complaining about the price of everything! Why, In my day ...

Side note: I checked on train tickets for the same weekend. They were actaully a few dollars cheaper, but it takes a little longer to get there

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[Luna 0]

Man, it's not just you! I have been noticing the same thing. I travel a lot on AirTran because the airport they fly out of locally is small and convenient, and they are dirt cheap. But I was pricing flights to Orlando, and I started thinking that even as cheap as the fares are, you end up paying a ton in extra taxes and fees! As an example, a round trip fare from here to Orlando that goes through Atlanta (some of these fees are per segment, so a direct flight comes out cheaper) is appx. $109. Add in the taxes and fees and it's now $152! That is 38% over the cost of the ticket in taxes and fees. You thought your 28% was bad! It's really starting to irritate me since I really started looking at it. I get all excited because I can fly to New York for $54 each way, but WAIT! Not quite. If anyone has any answers to this, I'd love to hear them. I think many passengers are being fooled by the low advertised prices only to be nailed in the end. But then again, the alternatives aren't very attractive either.