How airline fees are turning baggage into billions

CapeTalk's John Maytham speaks to publisher and editor of SA Flyer magazine Guy Leitch.

Listen below:

Leitch explains that it's important to distinguish between the full service carriers, where everything is included at no extra charge... and the low cost airlines - which are the ones trying to get their base costs as low as possible, so they then charge more for 'extras' like food and luggage.

"We've seen this progressive and steady move over the last 30 years towards this elaborate menu of what we call 'ancillary benefits', where people can buy a ticket at a very low price, and then often end up spending more than the ticket cost on 'ancillary benefits' like checked luggage or seat allocation or priority boarding..."

- Guy Leitch, Editor of SA Flyer magazine 

Leitch says passengers "love to hate" the dynamic pricing model, which gives customers some choices on what they spend to fly.

But there are drawbacks to this option, as the rules change from airline to airline.

"It can become very very complex... if you book a long-haul flight on a full service carrier like Emirates (which will often allow you 2 x 22 kilograms of bags), then you want to fly an internal flight on Easyjet or Ryanair... and they're going to charge you £200 to £300 for your bags - it's an absolute killer."

- Guy Leitch, Editor of SA Flyer magazine 

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Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the discussion.