Airlines are taking savings from expired taxes (7.5% during FAA shutdown)

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By DAVID KOENIG

DALLAS (AP) - Airlines are tossing consumers aside and grabbing the benefit of lower federal taxes on travel tickets.

By Saturday night, nearly all the major U.S. airlines had raised fares to offset taxes that expired the night before.

That means instead of passing along the savings, the airlines are pocketing the money while customers pay the same amount as before.

American, United, Continental, Delta, US Airways, Southwest, AirTran and JetBlue all raised fares, although details sometimes differed. Most of the increases were around 7.5 percent.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20110724/D9OLO7G80.html

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In this Nov. 26, 2008 file photo, passengers arrive for flights out of Cleveland Hopkins Airport in Cleveland. Some airline customers won't see savings this weekend even though several federal taxes on tickets have expired. The taxes expired after midnight Friday, July 22, 2011, when Congress failed to pass legislation to keep the Federal Aviation Administration running. A number of airlines say they've raised fares to offset any tax savings. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta, File)

[cantbeserious]

1. The Job Of Corporations Is To Extract Your Last Dollar - Every Last Dollar

eom

[Initech]

19. Exactly - you don't work for you. You work for them.

[plumbob]

2. Gosh, I guess this means that those who think taxes raise your prices

are full of shit.

Yes, they are. All doing away with taxes does is do away with services and line the pockets of the unclean.

[indurancevile]

20. +1. supply & demand is in terms of total price. taxes mean the corps can't get the last penny

of profit.

if only the gov't would spend it on something besides war.

[plumbob]

28. Yes, war is their favorite, and I hate it.

There has not been a military action by the US since I was born in 1952 that I agree with.

[boppers]

30. Not Kosovo?

Rescue during Katrina?
Haiti relief?

[plumbob]

33. No, not Kosovo.

The other two are not wars.

(They also could have been done much better.)

[lovuian]

3. when the government goes down we pay and pay and pay

and the rich have private jets

[bloomington-lib]

4. That's exactly what happens.

Did anyone think they would hire more employees or cut prices? This is an example of the larger picture of tax cuts.

[BiggJawn]

5. Corporations are the most immoral "people" in the world.

They need more regulation, not less.

[Proletariatprincess]

6. I will never fly again.

If I can't get where I want to go by other means, I just won't go.
I know this isn't possible for a lot of people, but I still believe that most air travel can be avoided if the effort is made to find alternitives.

[PatSeg]

7. Same here

Between the airlines disregard for customers and TSA's abuse of flyer's civil rights and privacy, I'm done with flying.

[BiggJawn]

10. And the shrinking seats...

The distance between my hipbones or my tailbone and kneecaps isn't getting smaller any time soon.

[PatSeg]

12. And then squeezed between

two other people too big for their seats. Just the thought of it brings on an anxiety attack.

[BiggJawn]

14. Sorry...

I *USED* to fit in an airline seat. And I'm actually 30# lighter than those days...

[PatSeg]

25. I should have stated that as

SEATS too small for the passengers. The seats have gotten smaller, with less leg room. Its like the airlines have forgotten that real, live people are going to use those seats. There was a time when airlines bent over backwards to provide exceptional customer service. Now flying is a nightmare for most.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

13. same here. but I decided that when the groping was first allowed.

it's one thing if they take away our rights, it's quite another when we willingly give them up.

[sarcasmo]

15. I fell the same way, luckily I can drive every where I care to go.

[trud]

16. no more flying for me either. stuff them. n/t

[Proletariatprincess]

27. Flying has become more difficult and frustrating than ever before....

I believe more and more people are refusing to fly. Air traffic just has to be down.
But maybe that is by design. In a police state, freedom of movement is curtailed.
The infrastructure is collapsing and public transportation (trains and busses) are inadequet to meet the need. It may all be an effort to further isolate people like they did in the old USSR.
Pardon my paranoia, but sometimes there really is someone following you.....

[customerserviceguy]

21. This is what it took?

Being treated like a terrorist or a criminal wasn't enough?

I share your feelings, but as I have family on the other coast, I'm stuck with air travel until I can retire and take the time necessary to travel by slower means.

[Botany]

8. so less money is going to the federal govt.?

Well, that should help w/ the federal deficit. :sarcasm:

[jimmydwight]

9. Greedy bastards!

Nothing else to say

[avaistheone1]

11. Perhaps they forgot it is the US taxpayers who bailed out the airlines after their 9/11 failures.

The airlines have such short memories.

:puke:

[customerserviceguy]

22. Yeah, that occurred to me, too

Maybe some payback is in order.

[DFW]

17. The only thing that surprises me

Is that the airlines haven't yet installed pay toilets on their planes (use of toilet paper
an extra $1.99, credit cards only, please).

[thecrow]

18. Congress failed to pass legislation to keep the Federal Aviation Administration running

wait....

:wtf:

Are the planes still flying?
Isn't the FAA one of those things that's necessary if planes are flying?

It's all too much to understand.

[BumRushDaShow]

23. Yes the controllers are still on the job

and have to be as we learned when Raygun was first inaugurated. But non-essentials are now "furloughed" and none of the airlines are sending in the excise taxes that would have been owed - right in the middle of vacation season (the taxing authority has now expired and no one is on duty to collect the $$$). So yet another revenue stream has disappeared - all over RW lunatics trying to eliminate what little of a union that the FAA has.

Yet like the last budget debacle, the M$M minimizes the impact. The gov't is losing $200 million a week which the corporations are now pocketing. :banghead:

[James48]

24. Not exactly correct-

The only part of the FAA affected are those employees funded by that ticket tax.

That includes those in vovled in making airport improvements in the future- there are about 1,000 employees engagted in airport development, (brick and mortar runway immprovements, etc), and there are employees engaged in planning for improvements in the FAA's communications and control systems. (Planning for communications, radar etc). Plus some people engagted in repair of equipment are also funded from that money.


None of the Operations funds are affected, just the ticket tax funded positions. Which means the air traffic controllers still are working, but the teams who keep some of their radio and radar gear working are not. So if there is an equipemnt that goes out, there could be a problem, and there definately will be issues later on as the planning portion is not being done.

[jmowreader]

26. Are there no laws against profiteering anymore?

[onenote]

32. were there such laws in the past?

Link?

[freshwest]

29. Yet some GOPig was on a 'progressive' internet radio out of MN decrying subsidies on the arilines.

As if that was the only reason he couldn't support what Obama asked for in debt negotiations.

That was it, hold the country hostage because the airlines are getting too much money to take care of small airlines!

They're breaking the back of the American people! My ass...

[JCMach1]

31. This seems like a coordinated effort...

racketeering anyone?