I didn't invent the term “junk fees.” I'll just leave that to other pundits to claim ownership.
When we talk about junk fees, they're characterized as fees that are over and above whatever you pay as your base fare in an airline context. You pay for seat selection, a carry-on bag or a checked bag. People have considered those as junk fees, and they've been around a long time. They haven't been around just weeks, months or even years; they've been around for decades. Airlines have used them to create what we have traditionally called “fences” to make sure that, in fact, when you buy a fare, you will understand there are conditions associated with that fare. If you want to change your fare, itinerary or dates of travel, it's going to cost you something. Now that cost has the “junk fee” moniker associated with it, but they've been around a long time.
What has happened now is a proliferation of junk fees. That is really the moniker that has been applied to low-cost carriers looking to improve their financial performance by what I would call chunking out the services they would normally build for passengers. Now you're paying x dollars for your first checked bag and x-plus dollars for your second checked bag. If you want a seat at a window, a seat on the aisle or a seat with more leg room, those are all charges that have now become part of the modus operandi of ULCCs.
When you, as a customer, buy an airfare between Toronto and Vancouver on Flair Airlines, you see a ticket price and it's x—whatever the dollar amount happens to be. When you make the booking, they try to sell you up with a bunch of other conditions: checked bags, carry-on baggage, seat selection, meals and all kinds of amenities they want to throw at you. Those are the fees that sometimes make up the actual dollars you pay as a customer for that trip on a carrier such as Flair. The fees can be significant. In fact, Flair has admitted that over 40% of its revenue is based on its junk fees that are out there in the marketplace.
Junk fees are an important part of the business. They will not go away. My bet is there will continue to be a proliferation of these fees into the future.