Delta Air Lines is getting rid of booking fees.
Atlanta-based Delta said it will stop charging a $25 phone booking fee and a $35 fee for booking at the airport. The changes were announced Thursday, the same day the company reported a 27 percent jump in first-quarter earnings.
"It is much simpler for our customers to not have to worry if they will pay a fee for ticketing with Delta," Glen Hauenstein, Delta's new president, said in a statement.
Feedback from employees and customers spurred the change, said Brian Kruse, a Delta spokesman. Fliers will now be able to use their preferred booking method without worrying about fees that change depending on how they buy tickets. Customers repeatedly cited ease of business as one of their top priorities when booking flights, he said.
Delta in 1999 began prodding customers to use its website to book tickets by adding a $2 surcharge to tickets that were purchased by other means. In 2005, it added heftier fees for tickets purchased on the phone or at the airport. Gradually, those fees rose to their current levels.
Other airlines also added such fees over the years, though lower-cost airlines Southwest and Frontier didn't charge for phone reservations.
Delta said European travelers booking Delta flights through partner companies will still be required to pay booking fees.
Delta and its affiliates account for about three-quarters of the flights at Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport. For more than a year Delta has experienced the best financial performance in company history. In the first three months of this year, Delta spent more on labor and saw revenue drop 1 percent, but it recouped costs by saving $700 million on fuel. Rising oil prices and decreasing airfares pose some short-term risk.
