Those of us who were leaning toward Delta Air Lines because of its policy of allowing a free first checked bag can now abandon any favoritism. As of December 5 (just in time for the holidays!), it will start charging $15 for the first check bag. That figure is pretty much what everyone's charging these days. Only upstarts like JetBlue and Southwest don't.

The news, though, brightens in a few quarters. Simultaneously, Delta has decided to halve its fee for a second bag from $50 to a more sensible $25. Not many of us check two bags, though, so the net effect will still be negative for most casual travelers.

The major American airlines, now that they've got you on the hook for your checked bags, are relenting on their fuel surcharges. Delta and Northwest are eliminating their fuel surcharges. It's about time, too, since it's gotten pretty hard to defend them. The price of oil peaked back in the summer but is now less than half what it was at its peak, and in the past month, it has fallen about $30 a barrel.

When it's backed into a financial corner, what's an airline to do? Gas prices are saner now, but they won't give our money back for the fuel surcharges because now they're using that cash to plug mortal wounds. Americans have grudgingly accepted the implementation of luggage fees, too. As consumers, we've all been led down the primrose path with the airlines, and they're finding that we're actually pretty compliant when it comes to these extra charges.

So why not try out a hefty optional one? United Airlines has partnered with FedEx to sell passengers door-to-door overnight delivery of your luggage. FedEx retrieves your luggage from your house, preferably the day before your flight, and you pick it up the next day at your destination, such as a hotel or at a specified address. The one-way price deviates from the usual FedEx rate scheme: $149 for flights under 1,000 miles and $179 for longer flights. As always, without this splurge fee, your stuff can travel in the cargo hold just below your feet for $15 each way for the first bag and $50 each way for each second bag.

Marketing-wise, I'm not sure what the message is here. With this new optional charge, United seems to be tacitly acknowledging that you might be better off entrusting your valuables to someone else. Is United admitting that paying ten times the usual price is the only way to make sure your bag actually makes it to your destination? Like the cruise lines' efforts to offer premium restaurants on its ships, United seems to be saying that its usual service isn't good enough. And it's not like the lack of a bag will speed your passage through security in any meaningful way, because you can only move through it as quickly as the person in front of you.

Remember the days when you could actually take a bottle of water through airport security? Your hand lotion, hairspray, and mouthwash were okay too, even if you had the big bottle. All that changed in 2006, when a scare related to liquid explosives caused airports around the world to restrict passengers to carrying a small amount of liquid (3 ounce bottles in the U.S.) through security. Consumers couldn't even take beverages with them, being forced instead to buy an overpriced drink on the other side of security if they were thirsty.

The Transportation Security Administration says it's working to change the rules to allow passengers to carry full-size bottles of liquids through security, so long as they removed them from their carry-ons and put them through X-ray machines separately. (Just like the current requirement to put laptop computers through separately.)

A spokesperson for TSA says that the rule should be changed sometime in 2009, but at the latest, 2010. How hard can it possibly be to change the rule and why is it taking so long? The TSA says that X-ray machines have to be upgraded so they can tell the difference between harmless liquids and explosives.

Air travel has gotten so bothersome, that this small change isn't likely to make me a much happier flier. The TSA says this rule change would help speed up the time spent passing through security, but I'm pretty skeptical. The amount of time spent taking all these liquids out of a suitcase can't possibly be less than the time now spent taking mini bottles out of the carry-on. Flying commercially is getting more expensive and more inconvenient. Don't pin your hopes on a rule change like this to ease the hassle one bit.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.

Until this summer, I didn't consider a domestic flight a good deal unless it was under $100 for a one-way ticket. Since June, though, I know I'm lucky if I can find a flight anywhere that won't cost more than a mortgage payment.

A new study from USA Today shows exactly how much those prices have gone up because of fuel surcharges:

• Los Angeles to Bangkok -- up $352 over last year's fuel surcharge with a fuel surcharge of $542
• Washington, D.C to Tokyo -- up $400 over last year thanks to a $630 fuel surcharge
• New York to Dublin -- up $138 over last year because of a $230 fuel surcharge

Prices jumped sharply when jet fuel prices took off and airlines were forced to increase fuel surcharges in ticket fares. But now jet fuel is down sharply, comparable to last year's prices, yet the high prices remain all across the industry. What gives?


Outraged travelers accuse airlines of greed, but the airlines argue the surcharges are still necessary. A Northwest Airlines spokesperson says that prices "continue to exceed the surcharge levels in place," adding that many existing surcharges were not in place when oil was at its record high earlier this year. Other airlines say that the surcharges they were charging when jet fuel was at its high of $4.34 per gallon in July could not keep up with the costs to the airlines, so that now even though jet fuel is down below $2.40 per gallon, they are still trying to catch up with all the costs incurred over the summer.

So you buy an airfare at a ridiculous price -- or even a good one. And a week later, the airline decides it hasn't sold enough seats. Rather than fly an empty plane, which would cost it money, it slashes the prices on seats. Come the day of the flight, you turn to the person sitting next to you and learn, to your disgust, that they paid $200 less than you did.

What can you do? Well, by the time you're on the flight, often nothing. But if you discover you've paid more than you had to before you have used the ticket, you can usually petition the airline for the price difference. Usually, that refund comes in the form of a voucher that you use for future travel, but that's still money you don't have to spend later on.

But, surprise! Some airlines have a nasty trick up their sleeve. Many charge obscene change fees since, the way they see it, they have to pull your old ticket and issue a new one to give you the better price. That means that for domestic flights on U.S. Airways, Continental, and American, the price has to drop by more than $150 in order to give you an ultimate benefit. But plenty of other airlines don't charge any fee at all (JetBlue, Alaska, United), or their fee is small enough to give you pretty good chances (Northwest's is $50, AirTran's $75). The fees are usually steeper for international flights, but then again, the price drops stand to be higher for those, too.

After you book a flight, you could keep returning to the airlines' websites to double-check the rate status of your booked flights. That will work. But one of the lesser-known airline booking sites, Yapta, keeps tracking the price of the stuff you've bought, and if it descends past the point where you can actually make some money back, it alerts you by e-mail. (The site, like Hotwire's Trip Watcher and Farecast, will also keep an eye on rates for flights you haven't bought.) Every bit helps, right? Maybe the amount you save will pay for a pack of peanuts. Barely.

The tale of the scrimping airlines gets curiouser and curiouser. And shiftier and shiftier. Continental has announced that it will reduce the maximum size of its passengers' carry-on bags by a full six inches.

That's right. As of November 1, if you try to tote a bag measuring more than a total of 51 inches, by the rights the airline can turn you around and force you to pay to check it. The new rule says that domestic carry-ons can't measure more than 45 inches.

Gee, Continental, this stricter rule wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that as of October 7, you now charge $15 for the first checked bag and $25 for the second, would it? After all, there are lots of people whose bags fit in the overhead bin just fine today, but as of the Thanksgiving flight rush, could potentially be forced to shell out for them. You wouldn't be taking advantage of consumers, would you? You won't take these new rules as an opportunity for the extra-charge police to stop passengers with a poorly timed gotcha, right?

So it's refreshing to see an airport take control of its own destiny. In Orlando, a city that stands to lose a great deal from the coming slowdown in tourism and convention business, the airport (coded MCO) wants to help passengers save money flying there. So it has uploaded page of the latest airfare specials flying there.

It makes sense, and it's so simple you have to wonder why your airport isn't doing it to stimulate business. Many smaller American airports are floundering as the major airlines yank service. But if airport authorities do all they can to help keep the planes full, the airlines will be less likely to suspend service. If they go, the airports, which depend on landing fees that are built into the cost of every ticket, will go into the budget hole.

Carnival Corp., which in 2007 was among the first cruise companies to implement a fuel surcharge when prices spiked, has announced it'll be one of the first to get out. For 2010 bookings on the company's six major lines (Carnival, Costa, Cunard, Holland America, Princess, and the Yachts of Seabourn), the much-dissed fuel surcharge will be gone.

At the same time, Carnival said it would also be raising fares a little. The increase amount hasn't been announced yet, so it's hard to say from this vantage point whether it's just robbing Peter to pay Paul. But raising prices at this time of year is nothing unusual in travel biz, which sets its rates for the future well in advance.

For their part, the airlines of America are not budging. Last month, reps at several of them said that although fuel prices were indeed lower, they were still running higher than their accountants had expected when they set the current budgets, so the fuel surcharges would stay.

That doesn't entirely square with the rest of the air industry, though. Several international carriers, including Qantas, KLM, Air France, and Malaysian, have cut them. Northwest recently reduced its fuel surcharges for cargo, but not for people. All this while the major players in America and the United Kingdom are keeping them as-is. Some analysts are staying it'll stay this way at least until (and if) oil drops below $80 a barrel and stays there for a while.

Brace yourself for more changes in the airline industry. American Airlines, the company that paved the way for all the other airlines to charge for checking your luggage, is considering more fees for fliers.

Charges for checked luggage have been a real moneymaker for airlines, with most estimating several hundred million dollars in additional revenue since adding the charges, usually in the neighborhood of $15-$25 per regular-sized bag. The charges are also likely doing a lot to save the airlines on fuel, as passengers try harder to lighten their loads and avoid the fees.

While the baggage fees have been successful for airlines, they're still struggling financially, so American Airlines plans to lead the way once again with new a la carte pricing for "extras" on flights. Things that up to now have been "free," or rather, included in your fare price, will be "unbundled." Starting in 2009, American will introduce charges for things like beverages, blankets, special seating, and more. This new price structure will allegedly reduce the baseline fare (this frequent flier is skeptical) so that only those who want extras will have to pay for them.

The airlines might have found a tax loophole, and you're it. The travel consultancy firm T2 recently published a worrisome blog post that is gaining traction. The airlines' extra fees, it says, aren't just costing consumers more. They're also enabling the airlines to dodge tax to our government.

Until a few months ago, checking a bag was considered a service that came with the base fare that you paid when you bought your plane ticket. That was taxed at a rate of 7.5%. But now many airlines are charging up to $50 for each bag each way, and because it's not part of the base fare, that fee isn't subject to tax. T2 says that cash belongs to the airlines, free and clear.

So a carrier like United, T2 writer Timothy O'Neil-Dunne calculates, would be cheating Uncle Sam out of tax income of $7.5 million for each $100 million it makes on extra fees. Given that United recently surmised that it stood to make $700 million on its extra fees, that's a lot of cash that won't be going to our schools, our roads, our veterans programs, and our elaborate Wall Street bailouts. Not only do consumers get screwed by these extra fees, they get screwed out of the greater good of tax revenue.

Hedging fuel costs sounds confusing, but it's nothing new. Some airlines, like the budget model Southwest, have managed to claim a profit in no small part because their masters were clever enough to buy most of its fuel when it was still sensibly priced. That can work out really well if gas prices go up, because those smart airlines will still be paying an older, lower price. Some experts think Southwest has saved $3.5 billion by doing this since the late '90s.

United Airlines, which has a management as sharp as a box of hammers and aging seating about as soft, thought it could imitate Southwest by getting into the hedging game, too. But, whoops! Timing is everything. It got in way too late, as the market prepared to peak. Prices went down. And right now it's paying almost $13 more a barrel than oil is actually worth, which could rack up as much as $544 million in boneheaded, unnecessary losses.

It's a lot like the guy down the street who bought his house a year ago for $400,000, only to find in this self-correcting market that it's now worth about $250,000, which everyone in the neighborhood knew was a more realistic price all along. He intended to flip it, but now he's got to live in it. Of course, if gas prices go back up a bit, United's loss may be mitigated slightly.

You may not have thought there was anywhere else for the airlines to cut back. But, no. To cut costs, they have actually figured out a way to alter time and space.

Turns out that flight paths as we know them are less-than-efficient, and there are a few methods to wring more economy from the way planes fly on established routes. The airlines are already at it.

Method One: Flights get a little shorter. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has estimated that in Europe, flights are about 30 miles longer than they have to be, mostly because jetliners have to avoid military airspace. Get the guys in green to ease up on peacetime airspace restrictions, and allow commercial pilots to make tighter turns (so hold on to those non-existent peanuts, folks). European flights could shorten by about four minutes if that happens. For the past year, American airlines have been permitted to use military airspace during peak travel periods like Memorial Day and Thanksgiving, but mostly to ease delays. It's not a leap to extend those permissions to help ailing airlines save a little more cash.

Even though summer isn't over yet, for those of you who travel over Thanksgiving, it is already time to start thinking about booking your flights.

Thanksgiving is one of the busiest flying times of the year and this year there are going to be a lot fewer flights available. In an effort to save on costs and in hopes of being able to raise prices, airlines are cutting back on the number of flights they offer. American airlines is shrinking its flight capacity in its main US markets by up to 12% in the Fall and United by up to 16.5%. (Southwest just announced it would cut 200 flights, or about 6%, but not till January, 2009).

Travelers in certain markets will find the cuts much more severe than those percentages imply. If you are used to taking a direct flight, from, let's say, Albany to Chicago on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, you will have half the amount of flights to choose from -- four this year, down from eight last year, according to a report from USA Today. From Boston to Chicago there are three fewer flights, from San Diego there are two fewer flights, and from Pittsburgh there are six fewer direct flights on that route that day.

When you travel for work, you know the drill: Get receipts for everything. When you spend cash for stuff like meals, beverages, hotels, and rental cars, your employer is likely to pick up the tab as long as you've got proof of purchase.

But what if you have to spend money on the road but can't get a receipt? It's happening more and more. The major airlines have deployed their newest fees with such haste that they are not always equipped to issue receipts for on-board purchases. Ask a flight attendant for one, and on some carriers you're more likely to receive a blank stare than appropriate documentation.

Take U.S. Airways. As of Aug. 1, the carrier began charging for drinks of any sort, including $2 for water. Passengers are not permitted to carry their own beverages through security, and buying drinks in the terminal is not always possible either because of a time crunch or because of personal dignity over gouging. If you, a business traveler, decide during Hour Three of a flight that you're thirsty, the staff will sell you a drink but they won't be able to give you a receipt.

I called U.S. Airways to ask if any of its flight attendants were equipped to furnish receipts for this newfangled charge. The answer was no. Right now, an airline rep told me, there are "plans" to give on-board staff hand-held devices for printing receipts by the first quarter of 2009, but for now, they have nothing, and those nebulous "plans" could not be elucidated for me. U.S. Airways' flight attendants also have neither the training or the equipment to write receipts by hand.

Just when will fliers rebel against all the cost-cutting at the airlines? Probably never. We will just keep taking the charges in stride. If anything is going to make us stop flying, it is that costs are going up and people just don't have the money to travel as much these days.

Today's news about Northwest adding up to an $80 surcharge on flights is bad news, but has become pretty typical these days. The bigger headline may be what US Airways is trying to do, as reported by the New York Times: charge for coffee and other beverages. The hidden lead here is that the fee was originally announced June 12 and did not cause too much of a fuss, even though it marks the first time a major airline has stooped to these cost-cutting depths. It is only surfacing now because the union that represents flight attendants is complaining about it.

Even the company seems a little skeptical that they'll be able to pull it off. Officials are apparently telling flight attendants that they can be liberal in applying the new charges, meaning that if anyone complains, they can just placate them with a free drink.

I can imagine how those conversations will go: