Skift Take
Fees for bags, reservation changes, and seat upgrades have finally made U.S. airlines profitable, but the traveling pubic still isn't sold on the a la carte fee system.
It's no coincidence that Delta Air Lines had the second-highest operating-profit margin among U.S. airlines in the third quarter and also took in the most checked bag-fee revenue: $233.1 million.
Delta's third quarter profit margin of 14.6% (or $1.46 billion in Q3 operating profit) was only eclipsed by the much-smaller Alaska Airlines at 18.7% ($237 million), according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Interestingly, Alaska's third quarter revenue from bag fees was more than $44 million, well up in the BTS ranking in sixth place behind Delta, United, American, US Airways, and Southwest out of 16 airlines covered.
Delta generally charges $25, $35 and $125 for the first, second and third checked bags each way, while Alaska charges $20 each.
Here's the BTS' bag-fee tallies through the first three quarters of 2012:
Baggage Fees by Airline 2012 (numbers in 000)
Rank
Airline
1Q
2Q
3Q
2012 so far
1
Delta
198,352
231,351
233,123
662,826
2
United
156,761
194,