Ads, ads, ads. Recently, atop a Hotmail web page, a banner ad displayed the phrase “Fees Don’t Fly With Us,” accompanied by an image of a Southwest Airlines plane. Plus there’s the new “coupon” (see above). Lower on the page, to back up these claims, a link to an MSN article teased US Airways to Charge for First Bag, Drinks. So now it’s three carriers charging $15 for the first checked bag — American, United, and US Airways. On top of that, starting August 1 US Airways will charge $2 for a nonalcoholic drink. It seems that either the legacy airlines are rushing to yield the skies to Southwest, or that the great blue will become the exclusive domain of the wealthy. One thing’s certain: the skies are becoming less friendly.The MSN article goes on:

As of July 1, Southwest Airlines will be the only U.S. carrier that permits two checked bags for free, according to air travel expert Tom Parsons, who expects still more service fees to come.

As someone who flies Southwest more than any other airline - and so far has not been accused of violating the carrier’s unspoken dress code for passengers - here’s hoping that air passengers continue to have the sans-fee option of flying Southwest.

I knew it was going to be expensive on the ride from the airport. Billboards and lighted signs advertised celebrities I thought were dead (Roseanne, Carrot Top) and everything seemed a little too new for a traveler used to paying eight dollars for a foam bed and twenty dollars for a crazy night out in places like Peru and Argentina. If you’re wondering what type of person stays in Las Vegas for seven days, it’s the type who’s used to lounging around in cities for weeks for no other reason than to see who he or she happens to come across. Initially I thought seven days may be too short.

The Famous Sign (Photo Credit: Pirvy)

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If you’re planning to fly American, get ready to shell out more money, *after* purchasing your ticket, for any bags you check. According to a May 22 article in the Chicago Tribune, a $15 fee - each way - will take effect for the first checked bag, for people flying with discounted tickets purchased on or after June 15; in other words, passengers who seek to pay the least for their flights will be the ones hit with this fee. United Airlines is “seriously considering” following suit.

So, what will this do to processing times at airport check-in, when people who forget about this new fee go to check their bag and get told they need to pay on the spot? How many more minutes will it take everyone to check in? And what’s next? A fee to wait in the airport lounge? A dollar for a pillow or blanket? In his May 23 opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, William Ernst asks, if the new fee really is a way to cope with rising fuel prices, then why not charge for carry ons, rather than compel people to attempt to cram more items, which they would otherwise have checked, into the overhead bins?

Most importantly, what will people who travel with discounted airfares decide to do? Will they stop flying American, and possibly United, in protest? Will they opt for a full-fare ticket instead? Will they stop flying altogether, and go by car, bus, or train instead?

After more than a decade of taking low airfares for granted, Americans seem on the brink of a major shift in travel habits. Not only might a majority of Americans never own a passport; that majority might stop traveling even within our borders, too.

Bankruptcy. Mergers. Price hikes. And, at the other end of the experiential spectrum, the joy of touching down in a new place — motivation enough for trans-Pacific passengers to endure confined spaces for more than 12 hours at a time.

News reports of the Delta-Northwest Airlines merger bring to mind all the above experiences. In many ways, NWA has been a pioneering carrier. For instance, in 1957 NWA meteorologists created a system for forecasting erratic air currents that occur in cloudless air between altitudes of 7,000 m (4.34 miles) and 12,000 m (7.44 miles), information that has been essential for flying over turbulence-prone mountain regions. NWA is still a leader in this field; the other airlines rely on NWA’s TPAWS (turbulence prediction and warning services) to this day.

Minneapolis-based NWA also has flown what, for me, was a pioneering voyage on a plane. An NWA pilot was at the controls of Flight 27, my first journey to Asia. It was January 1999. I wasn’t thinking of how the airline was founded in 1926 as a domestic mail carrier, and began carrying passengers in 1927. I also wasn’t thinking about how the airline distinguished itself during World War II, gathering valuable information about flight routes over Alaska, on the fly, as it were.

Looking out the window, at the white Arctic land below, I wasn’t thinking of how NWA had discovered that trans-Pacific routes over Alaska saved as much as 3,000 km (2,000 miles) on a New York-Tokyo route. I was thinking about the flight’s ultimate destination: the Philippines, an archipelago I’d never visited on a continent I’d never been to. A developing country. In the tropics. Where tropical diseases could strike down a person, sometimes forever. The list of recommended immunization shots included Japanese B encephalitis, hepatitis B and C, and a half dozen others. The luggage contained anti-malarial prophylactics. I dressed as conservatively as I knew how, just in case people in the Philippines frowned on the baring of skin. Besides, couldn’t you get instantaneous skin cancer in the tropics if you weren’t careful?

Not only did I not, obviously, die in the Philippines, but in the process of making the connecting flight to Manila I visited Narita International Airport for the first time, which is located 60 km (37 miles) away from downtown Tokyo and has been a major Northwest hub since the 1950s.

So? Well, if NWA and Atlanta-based Delta follow through with their April 14 public proposal to create the world’s largest airline through an all-stock merger deal valued at $17.7 billion, then what happens to the in-flight meals? Will passengers still receive sashimi and green tea? More importantly, what about airfares? What about jobs for pilots? Flight attendants? Flight capacity?

It looks as if pilot contracts will be among the first details worked out. According to the Associated Press and The Enquirer (a paper based in Cincinnati, a Delta hub), pilots from Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. will meet for two days this week to begin working out a joint contract.

So, is this all a good thing? Not surprisingly, passengers already seem to be feeling the sting. Today’s total round trip airfare for Flight 27 and its connecting flights, which I used to take several times a year? $1,508, for a trip departing August 10 and returning August 20. That’s up from $850, the fare I used to pay. Proponents of the merger cite anticipation of increased competition from foreign carriers, via expanded Open Skies agreements. Skeptics, by contrast, see little or no promise of greater synergy or cost savings as a result of a Delta-NWA merger. (Both airlines emerged from bankruptcy within the past year.)

Speaking of cost savings, or lack thereof… The days of taking it for granted that you can buy affordable berries (or other products) from Chile on a winter day in a North American supermarket may be numbered. But so long as you or your neighbor yearn to explore the world beyond your own community, be it hamlet or metropolis, experience tells me that people will continue to seek and find the most viable trajectory for getting from here to there — even way over there. That means flying.

Just when it seemed the Invisible Hand (and mismanagement) might never stop smacking down the U.S.-based airlines, one carrier has good news. Vegas-based Allegiant Travel Co. reports not just a first-quarter profit (11 percent), but also revenue of over $133 million for the same period. That’s a revenue increase of 58 percent, writes Benjamin Spillman in the April 30 edition of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Allegiant, a low-cost airline and vacation seller, also has increased the percentage of full seats on each flight to 87 percent — the highest in the airline industry, according to Spillman. And its stock is up nearly 34 percent.

And what of the tourism slump in Allegiant’s home city, Las Vegas? It’s having a mixed effect on air travel. Since November, traffic at McCarran International Airport has decreased; however, the cost of Vegas hotel rooms also has decreased, drawing more Allegiant customers to the carrier’s partner hotels in Sin City.

Another Allegiant city, Bellingham, Washington, has seen increased traffic from Canadian travelers, who are enjoying the convenience of a small airport and the relative strength of the Canadian dollar. Beginning in June, Allegiant plans to add San Francisco and San Diego to the list of four other cities that connect with Bellingham — Reno, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Palm Springs, California.

Not bad for an airline that, like so many others, was once in bankruptcy.

That’s right. Joe Tangredi broached this possibility in his February 5 post. Airlines are poised to go the way of United — with fees, not just for that second checked bag, but also for select aisle and window seats. And your fares are going up too.One bearer of this bad news, Joe Sharkey of the New York Times, reports on this trend in his April 15 column:

Air Tran Airways will start charging $10 for a second checked bag for most coach passengers, effective May 15. And another low-cost carrier, Virgin America, said it would begin charging $25 for a second checked bag on May 5. All the major carriers except American Airlines recently imposed $25 fees for a second checked bag.

Again Sharkey, in his April 22 column, reports that beginning May 7, US Airways will charge $5 to $15 for so-called Choice Seats. Passengers will have the option to buy Choice Seats upon checking in. (Preferred-status passengers won’t have to pay, “depending on availability,” whatever that means.)

Sharkey cites Rick Seaney, CEO of FareCompare.com. Seaney writes in his column that domestic airlines may need to raise fares by 15-20%, just to break even. By early April, all major network carriers had followed United’s lead in announcing the latest across-the-board fare increase.

The upward trend of airfares seems destined to continue in the years ahead. What to do? The Belgians may have an answer. Agence France-Presse reports that Brussels Airlines will fractionally slow the speed of its flights, for an expected savings of €1.1 million (US$1.76 million) on its fuel bill. It’s refreshing to read about an airline that chooses not to balance its budget on the backs of its passengers — at least, for the time being.