RustyC

There's just too much bait-and-switch mentality on advertising vs. actual fares, as if it's an article of faith in the industry that you just have to advertise something that looks way too good to be true, and then not deliver it.

The DOT rules about all-in pricing from the Obama administration were a big step forward to discouraging a fee-ing frenzy by making sure they're "outed" earlier in the process, but that's under attack from airline interests, natch.

With the fare structure with Frontier you have both the (real) government-imposed costs and the (invented) airline-imposed ones not subject to the percent discounts, so what's left for the fare in some cases is "low" to begin with and 90% off doesn't do much to change it.

OTOH, September and October are good times to get really good deals if you're very date-flexible, so even though it's not really 90% or 99% off, the all-in fares sometimes still can be impressive. I saw Beck and U2 in Phoenix last week at $74 ATL-PHX-ATL, the LAS RTs (ATL-LAS-ATL) have gone as low as $58 a-i, and even ones requiring connections like ATL-PDX-ATL have come in at $107 or so RT. Plus all the other unbundled fees you hit, of course.

The legacies and their cartel pricing have given the ULCCs much more breathing space than they would have been allowed in times past. AA has been most aggressive about responding. I have a really hard time seeing DL able to match fares on a full basic-economy rollout.