Oct. 25--One of the nation's largest online travel search companies has added a feature to make it easier for you to see the true cost of flying. But you still need to do some extra work to get the whole picture.
Expedia Inc., which operates such travel sites as Expedia.com, Orbitz.com and Travelocity.com, has added a feature to all of its websites that displays in each travel search the fees airlines charge to check bags. Airline critics have complained that information about bag fees is hard to find on most airline websites.
In the first six months of the year, the nation's 14 largest airlines collected $1.8 billion in fees from checked bags, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
But Expedia still isn't displaying all the other fees charged by airlines, such as charges for food, entertainment and access to Wi-Fi. A spokeswoman for Expedia said the company hopes to offer that information in the future.
All of those other fees add up to big numbers. In 2014, the world's airlines raked in an estimated $38.1 billion in passenger fees and other revenue outside of airfares, a 21% increase from the previous year, according to a report from IdeaWorks, a Wisconsin-based airline consulting firm.
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