The High Costs of Flying

Have you flown lately? If you checked a bag, you may want to know that the airlines collected nearly $1.2 billion in baggage fees during the second quarter of 2017. That's a new record for a quarter and the fifth consecutive quarter that bag fees exceeded the billion-dollar threshold. Airlines collected another $737 million in reservation change and cancellation fees during the second quarter.

Airlines have collected more than $2.2 billion in bag fees and almost $1.5 billion in reservation change and cancellation fees through the first half of 2017. That's an average of more than $20 million per day in combined ancillary fees.

Airlines charged a record $4.2 billion in bag fees and $2.9 billion in ticket fees in 2016, a total of $7.1 billion. Since 2008, airlines have charged flyers almost $56 billion in bag and ticket change fees.