Misrepresentation of Fuel Surcharges in Airline Price Advertising

Not necessarily.

Remember that for most passengers there is one and only one factor involved in which airline they fly: the advertised fare. The experience of the industry is that every other factor goes out the window. Time of day is not a factor. Length of flight is not a factor. Number of connections is not a factor. The only factor that matters for getting passengers in your planes is having the lowest advertised fare.

This is why things which used to be part of the ticket price are now treated as separate fees. Want to pay by credit card? That's an extra fee. Want to pick seats in advance so you can sit with your companion? Extra fee. Want to check-in at the airport and print your boarding pass there? Extra fee. Check a bag? Extra fee. Carry on a bag (some airlines)? Extra fee. Want a drink or snack? Extra fee.

"Unbundling" all of those gets the advertised fare as low as it can go, and lets you publish a number that represents solely the cost to put your butt in a seat and go from Point A to Point B with nothing else included.

This is also why Southwest, traditionally considered a "low-fare" airline, now gets dinged for having higher fares on a lot of routes. Their published fare still includes many of those things, while other airlines have fully unbundled, so Southwest's prices are now often higher than other airlines, comparing by advertised fare, despite coming out roughly even when factoring in all the additional fees.

Though getting back to your assertion, Southwest also famously refuses to be listed in most travel-aggregation sites, forcing users to explicitly come to Southwest's site and perform a search in which no other airlines' fares are included.

In looking at the "Boeing biofuel breakthrough" a couple of days ago, I happened to look at what actual fuel consumption for the US airline industry has been. Turns out that, although total passenger miles is up since 2000, the fuel consumption for the commercial aviation industry (which may include cargo flights) peaked in 2000. The actual fuel usage for 2012 -52.3% of the 2000 FAA estimated consumption -- they'd predicted 3-4% annual growth over the next 10 years, it turned out to be a 15.9% reduction over the period.

Increased load factors (the seats filled on a flight -- increased from 70-83%) and reduced seat pitch (more seats, and passengers, per plane) seem to have staved off an actual reduction in the passenger-miles, but I strongly suspect that by plane-miles flown, we're down net.

http://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1wo2hl/boeings_...

It is debatable if each passenger should pay the same share - those up front have bigger heavier seats for example.

You also need to take into account the belly cargo - up to 30 tons on a 77W. That is a very significant revenue and profit centre for airlines. 30 tons is also very close to how much the passengers together weigh!

Suppose you're about to fuel up a long-range 777 for a trans-Pacific flight out of Los Angeles. So you swing over here:

http://www.airnav.com/airport/KLAX

And see that Landmark Aviation will sell you Jet A at $7.95. Your 777-300ER's tanks hold 47,890 gallons. So it "only" costs $380,725.50 to fill up before you leave.

Meanwhile, for BOS-LHR:

http://www.airnav.com/airport/KBOS

Signature Flight Support wants $9.16 right now. Fueling up for a 6-hour flight at 6000gal/hr will only run you $329,760.

So yes, fuel is very much the cost of aviation. After a couple years of flying, you'll have psent more money fueling your shiny long-range 777 than you spent buying it. And it cost you $320 million to buy.

If there are 250 people, round trip fuel price per passenger is $480.

Considering fuel is about 1/3rd of airline's operating expense, charging anything less than $1,000 for BOS-LHR roundtrip ticket is a money losing proposition, unless they can pack 350 people.

Some passengers may also have meritorious claims they'd like to bring against AA on an individual basis.

For contrast, on your car rental or telecom bill, you find these labeled as "fees permitted by law", in an attempt to obfuscate.

Baring the recent devaluation, this was one of my favorite aspects of United's mileage program—no fuel surcharges on any partner. I'm flying to Berlin in June on Lufthansa first class and the only fees were government taxes.