Your “Airline” as Ancillaries Vendor
Frequent fliers have been noticing and putting up with this for a while - airlines charging for excess bags, charging for large bags, charging for any bags, charging for food, charging for "extra" legroom, charging for early check in. Of course, this approach to squeezing additional revenue from customers through the time-tested "nickel and dime" business model isn't new: banks have been doing this for decades, and low-cost carriers ushered in the trend in the early 90s. Yet recently this additional thrust towards a broad spectrum of ancillary fees, as they are known in the travel industry, has taken on added urgency and importance for many carriers. And, it's a serious and not insignificant revenue stream, to the tune of $22 billion in 2010. As, Daniel Michaels of the Wall…