(EMAILWIRE.COM, July 02, 2009 ) Now this is a brilliant idea – I’m sure I’m not the only one who is left fuming when all of the extras are totted up and suddenly that budget flight isn’t such a bargain afterall –from check-in fees to baggage fees to wee fees, the flights masquerading as cheap are often not really saving you anything…

When booking a flight to travel to Spain, I headed for a budget airline’s website. Five minutes later, I headed away from said website. Swiftly. When selecting how many bags I wanted to check in, there was an option for ‘zero’, which I hit. The charge was £16. Yes, £16 to check in no bags. The same price to check in one. How on earth does that work?

Couple that with a seat reservation fee, possible ‘speedy boarding,’ fee, insurance fees and carbon offsetting fees and I may as well have gone with another, less ‘budget’ airline.

British Airways feel the same and is now seeking to expose the extent of low-cost airlines’ extra charges by launching a ‘value calculator’ on its website.

Log on and choose how you want to travel – from checking in to choosing a seat and eating on the plane. The calculator then pulls up the added extra costs courtesy of airlines such as Ryanair and easyJet.

Whilst the price you get on BA currently includes everything, Ryanair charges up to a whopping £80 for checking in at the airport and £8 for priority boarding. Don’t even get me started on the putting a bag in the hold fee.

Richard Tams, Head of UK and Ireland sales at BA, estimates that passengers can pay up to £375 in extras on return Ryanair flights and up to £79 on easyJet.

“The no-frills carriers claim they are always cheaper. Our calculator shows they are not,” he said. The Air Transport Users’ Council has also welcomed the move.

Now, BA is hardly top of the pops right at the moment either – announcing pre-tax losses of £401 million last year and asking staff to work for a month for no wages. But what they are doing here – exposing these bargain airlines and blowing apart their ‘cheap’ offerings – is much needed.

We can only hope BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh doesn’t go ahead with his threat to start charging for extras too, thus making a total mockery of this great new idea.

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-ENDS-

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