A U.S. Senate panel criticized rising airline seat and baggage fees on Tuesday and will call airline executives to testify on Dec. 4.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, Chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, will convene a hearing entitled “The Sky’s the Limit – New Revelations About Airline Fees,” at which executives from American Airlines, United Airlines Delta Air Lines, Spirit Airlines and Frontier will testify .

Blumenthal’s report revealed that the five airlines earned a combined $12.4 billion in seat fee revenue between 2018 and 2023 and said United earned $1.3 billion in seat fee revenue last year for the first time – more than the $1.2 billion it earned from checked baggage fees, the report said.

The Blumenthal panel studied for a year and found that carriers are increasingly using algorithms to set fees and set prices based on customer information. Some carriers may avoid federal transportation excise taxes by designating some charges as non-taxable charges.

His committee found that ultra-low-cost carriers Frontier and Spirit paid $26 million to gate agents and others between 2022 and 2023 to catch passengers allegedly not paying baggage fees or carrying oversized items .

Border staff can earn up to $10 for each piece of luggage a passenger checks at the gate, the report said.

Frontier said: “The gate agent commission is intended solely to incentivize our team members to ensure compliance with bag size requirements so that all customers are treated equally and fairly.” Spirit and United did not comment.

Airlines for America, a trade group, said the optional fees customers can choose, along with average domestic round-trip fares, including fees, were 14% lower in real terms in 2023 than in 2010.

Delta said it is committed to “offering a selection of fare products that best meet our customers’ specific travel needs.”

Blumenthal said Congress should require airlines to provide more detailed fee disclosures. He said the USDOT should investigate possible abuses in incentive-based fee collection.

Airlines have sued to block the Transportation Department’s new rule on ex-ante airline fee disclosures, while airline CEOs successfully lobbied against bipartisan legislation in 2018 that would require “reasonable and proportionate” baggage and change fees.

– David Shepardson for Reuters.