Airlines Enjoying Windfall Profits But Travelers Say They're Not Feeling It

DENVER (CBS4) - The profits for the U.S. airline industry are staggering -- $18 billion in just the first three quarters of 2015. Fares are high, but fuel is cheap, so why not pass some of the savings onto travelers?

During the first three quarters of 2015 airlines were on pace to pass 2014's record of $3.5 billion in baggage fees. Their planes flew 85 percent full and the steep drop in fuel prices had the carriers cashing in. Passengers flying to and from Denver International Airport say their experience doesn't reflect that success.

"I don't know if it's just in my mind but it feels like the seats are getting smaller," a traveler told CBS4's Karen Morfitt.

To start the year passengers learned airlines were raising fares.

"Very modestly -- and that was the first raising of fares in a very long time," airlines spokesperson Jean Medina said. "What's good news for consumers is when airlines are profitable, customers, communities and investors and employees win because they're re-investing that money back in to the business."

Charles Leocha is the chairman of flyers' rights group Travelers United.

"The fact that oil now has dropped to such a low level has really given them a windfall profit, and some of that you would think might be shared with the consumers -- either in the forms of lower fees or lower airfares, or perhaps by giving us a couple of extra inches in the airplane," he said.

The airline business is boom and bust. Since 1990 the industry has landed in the red 11 times. In 2005 it lost nearly $29 billion.