for $10 for Showing Up Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII MIME-Version: 1.0 The article below from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx /--------- E-mail Sponsored by Fox Searchlight ------------\ I HEART HUCKABEES - OPENING IN SELECT CITIES OCTOBER 1 From David O. Russell, writer and director of THREE KINGS and FLIRTING WITH DISASTER comes an existential comedy starring Dustin Hoffman, Isabelle Hupert, Jude Law, Jason Schwartzman, Lily Tomlin, Mark Wahlberg and Naomi Watts. Watch the trailer now at: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/huckabees/index_nyt.html \----------------------------------------------------------/ Airline to Ask Travelers for $10 for Showing Up August 25, 2004 By MICHELINE MAYNARD To the long list of things that used to be free but that airlines now want you to pay for, add walking up to the counter to buy a ticket. Northwest Airlines said yesterday that starting on Friday, it would charge a $10 fee for issuing a ticket at its airport check-in desks. A fee of $5 will be charged on every ticket purchased over the phone from its reservation lines. The only way to buy a ticket directly from Northwest without paying an extra fee will be through the airline's Web site. It sells about 16 percent of its tickets that way; 22 percent are bought over the phone, and only about 2 percent in person at airports. The rest are sold through travel agents, or through travel-booking Web sites like Expedia.com or Travelocity.com. Northwest said it did not think customers would be inconvenienced. "If you still want free, free is available," said Tim Griffin, the airline's executive vice president for marketing and distribution. Mr. Griffin said the move "gives customers control over how much personal service they'd like to receive when buying a ticket." He said it was akin to the common industry practice of charging an extra fee for a paper ticket instead of electronic ticketing. Customers who pay the booking fees when originally buying tickets will not be charged fees a second time if they change their travel plans, beyond the fee that the airline already charges for doing so. Terry L. Trippler, a longtime industry consultant, said that Northwest's move, which has not yet been tried by any other major airline in the United States, would backfire. "I can't see where the consumer benefits from this in any way, shape or form," Mr. Trippler said. Predicting that the new fees would become fodder for late-night talk show hosts, he said, "I'm not often speechless, but when I saw this, I sat back and said, 'What?' " Northwest executives defended the fees as part of a broader effort to reduce distribution costs by $70 million a year, and said that the new policy was similar to those of low-fare airlines like JetBlue Airways and Independence Air. Northwest said those airlines charge $6 to $10 extra for round-trip tickets not purchased through their Web sites. That is not how JetBlue and Independence Air would put it. Rather, their Web sites offer discounts for travelers who buy tickets electronically - $3 each way on JetBlue, $5 each way on Independence Air. Tickets bought at the airport or from airline reservations lines are simply sold at the advertised fare with no extra charge or discount. Mr. Griffin said Northwest customers were smart enough to figure out that the discount airlines were charging more for buying tickets offline than online. "The math is the math," he said. American Airlines, a unit of AMR and the nation's biggest carrier, said it did not plan to match Northwest's policy but would study it. Other airlines did not comment. Mr. Trippler said he was surprised by Northwest's attempt to charge more for some tickets, given that the airline industry has had almost no luck in trying to raise prices to cover the high price of jet fuel, which has raised their collective costs by billions of dollars this year. "Northwest has been afraid to sell an around-the-world ticket for $5 more than anybody," he said. "So I can't see that this will stick." Mr. Griffin, for his part, said he saw no danger of a negative reaction to the charges from travelers who do not own computers or have Internet access, many of them low-income or elderly. He said he believed that the access issue had long ago been resolved. During a recent local power interruption that disabled his home computer, Mr. Griffin said, his 14-year-old daughter simply went to a nearby library for access to the Internet. "It's publicly available, only a library card away," Mr. Griffin said. "It's part of what we all do in 2004 in the United States." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/25/business/25air.html?ex=1094451902&ei=1&en=98fdba380714ec2b --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. Enjoy now for 50% off Home Delivery! 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