Spirit Air wants to charge you for the right to purchase a ticket

Leave it to Spirit Air to find a creative way to pull more money out of your wallet whenever you fly with them.

They were the one who initiated the trend where passengers must pay up to $12 if they want to secure a seat next to a friend or family member. They also invented a “natural occurrence interruption fee”, a $2.50 fee to help recover the costs involved with storms and other weather related incidents (by the way they were fined $40,000 by the DOT for this illegal fee)

But now Spirit has topped the charts by asking the DOT to allow them to charge passengers for the right to purchase a ticket. We are not talking about a booking fee that third parties charge to serve as intermediaries between the traveler and the service provider. We are talking about a fee that you would have to pay directly to Spirit if you book a flight with them.

Since Spirit Air has kept the talks with the DOT behind the scenes, it is rumored that the fee will be between $5.00 and $10.00 per person.

I have two major problems with this fee.

First of all, Spirit might be forced to disclosed this fee at the time of purchase, but third parties would not, so the fee will be hidden until the very last moment when it will be buried under a bunch of other fees travel agents already chrge.

Second of all, it will create a bad precedent and soon other carriers will follow Spirit Air. I am talking all type of carriers, from airlines to busses, to trains. Once it is approved, nothing will stop any transportation company that sells individual tickets from doing the same.

I already contact the DOT and the FAA to let them know I am opposing to this fee and I encourage you to do the same.

You can contact the DOT by email on this site and the FAA on this one.

Let’s stop the insanity.