Lowest airfares in 11 years? OK, but what about fees?

On the heels of an airfare war comes this report from the U.S. Department of Transportation: We’re paying the cheapest fares in 11 years. Of course, that accounting doesn’t include all the extra charges for checked luggage, seat selection and even blankets and pillows that carriers have piled on in recent years.

Even the airlines concede that these fees, which they dub “a la carte” pricing, add up.

“When you throw in a la carte, there are some cases where you could be paying more to fly” today than back in 1998, said David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Assn. of America, an industry group based in Washington, D.C. that represents most U.S. carriers.

But really, haven’t we had enough bad news lately?  So as you squeeze yourself into a middle seat, sandwich your carry-on bag between your feet and shiver in the arctic blast from the air vents, count your blessings:

From April through June (latest figures), passengers paid an average of 13% less to fly between U.S. cities than they did during the same period a year ago. This was the biggest fare drop since the government began keeping records in 1995.

The previous record was set in the fourth quarter of 2001, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when fares fell 11.8% over the same period in 2000. So in terms of fares, the current recession has been harder on the airlines than the attacks, which sent the industry into a then-unprecedented tailspin.

With the latest decrease, fliers are paying an average of $301 per airline ticket, the first time that the price has fallen to the 1998 range, said Dave Smallen, spokesman for the DOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. (This price, which excludes fees paid at the airport or on board, is an average of all fares in all classes and includes both one-way and round-trip tickets, Smallen said.)

Meanwhile, overall prices in the U.S. economy, as measured by the inflation rate, have risen 32% since 1998, the government said. So when adjusted for inflation, airfares are much cheaper today.

Castelveter’s take?

For fliers, “it’s a good time to be a consumer, from a price perspective,” he said

Although I don”t always see eye-to-eye with the airline industry, I have to agree that flying today can be a good deal — if you travel light, bring a sweater and don’t much care where you sit.

—Jane Engle, assistant Los Angeles Times Travel editor

Photo: Lighten up, people. Those bags will cost you. But you may be getting the best fare deal in years. (These travelers were lining up at the American Airlines terminal at LAX last year.) Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 6:31 pm by Jane Engle and is filed under Airline travel, Business Travel, Deals, Frequent Flier, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.