AIRLINES Higher security fee set to raise costs

Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS

The cost of flying is headed higher now that Congress has agreed on a budget deal.

The proposed deal, expected to pass in the next several days, would more than double the $5 security fee on most round-trip tickets, to $11.20 per ticket. The higher fee begins July 1.

The old fee was $2.50 each way for a nonstop flight, capped at $5 each way if a traveler has a connection. The new fee would be $5.60 each way whether or not there’s a connection.

The CEO of Delta Air Lines said travelers will be the ones who pay it.

“Airfares are going up for consumers. So that tax increase will not be absorbed by Delta,” Richard Anderson said at a Delta Air Lines Inc. presentation for investors in New York on Wednesday.

Airlines have long complained that sales taxes, security fees, and airport taxes drive up the cost of their tickets unfairly. The industry’s trade group, Airlines for America, says that on a trip with one stop, taxes can boost the price of what would have been a $238 ticket to $300. In that example, the taxes work out to 26 percent of the original fare. Taxes would be lower on nonstop trips, which make up about two-thirds of U.S. airline flying.

The fee is meant to offset some of the cost of the Transportation Security Administration. A report last year by the Government Accountability Office found that the fees currently cover about 29 percent of the cost of airline security. The higher fee is meant to get travelers to pay for more of those costs, although some of the new money is slated to be spent on nonsecurity items.