Be sure to check out my tips for avoiding fees at the end.

But first, listen as Mr. Airfare Expert explain why fees don’t bother him:

5 airlines that still have a heart

Airlines Fees – Nutty, or Survival Mechanism?

At this point, you may be thinking, have the airlines gone nuts? They may be brazen, but they’re not nuts. It has to do with survival. Fees are a big part of airline revenue today. Back in 1990, about 88% of airline revenue came from airfares which is all perfectly logical. But according to the latest government figures, last year fares made up only 70% of airline revenue. Much of the rest of it came from fees.

Yes, the airlines are doing pretty well for the moment – surviving (and in some cases, thriving) – but think how many carriers disappeared in the difficult days since 9/11 and the recession of a few years back (Aloha, Midwest and Skybus to name a few, while iconic TWA flew its last flight on Dec. 1, 2001).

Got a complaint? Here’s how to file

Hidden Fees

A big problem for a lot of infrequent travelers is, many fees change without passengers being aware of it. Sure, we hear about the sexy ones:

• Frontier: New $2 charge for soft drinks (as of July 1)
• Frontier: Upcoming carry-on bag fee for some customers up to $100 (effective TBA)
• American, Delta, United, US Airways: Newly raised domestic change fee of $200

But did you know AirTran bumped up the charge for a first checked-bag from $20 to $25 (with a second checked-bag rising from $25 to $35), or that Delta now offers priority boarding for $10?

You could even say easy-going Southwest is getting fee-friendly with its new no-show policy; starting this fall, you’d better call ahead if you can’t make your flight or your ticket will be worth zip.

The Brutal Truth about Fees

There is a certain brutal honesty to today’s airline fees and it’s real simple: You pay for what you use. If you want a soft drink (on Frontier and Spirit, anyway), you’ll pay. Want to load up a huge suitcase? You’ll pay. Want to bring along your pup on the flight? You’ll pay. Whether these fees are worth it or not, only the individual passenger can say for sure.

How Passengers Can Avoid Fees

This too can be real simple.

Avoid bag fees:

• Fly JetBlue or Southwest (for free checked-bags).
• Watch the weight limits on checked and carry-on bags (these fees are expensive).
• Pack light and use a carry-on (although Allegiant and Spirit now charge all passengers for all bags).

Avoid soft drink/snack fees:

• Bring along food from home (or find cheaper offerings at the airport).
• If traveling on a pay-for-soft-drinks airline, you’ll have to purchase drinks in the airport (or bring an empty water bottle through security and once you’re past the check-point, fill up at a drinking fountain).

More from Rick Seaney:

Have the Airlines Gone Nuts? More Fees

Listen to Rick Seaney tell editor Anne McDermott how she went wrong:

Find the cheapest possible summer flight right now

Summer Prices – Good News, Bad News

The reason is simple: Summer is when people want to fly, so the airports make hay while the sun shines in the form of higher ticket prices. And let’s not forget some new fees. However, we do have ways to lower airfare so check our tips below. Then get shopping. Sale prices are limited to just a few seats which can (and do) disappear quickly.

Another way to save money: know what to pay.

Summer Airfare Prices to Aim For

If you can’t find the prices shown below, try to be as flexible on your travel dates as possible – that’ll help.

For flights lasting 1 to 1-1/2 hours: Example, between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta

• What to pay: About $165 round-trip
• What’s too much: More than $200 round-trip

For flights lasting from 2 to 4 hours: Example, between Chicago and Tampa

• What to pay: About $250 round-trip
• What’s too much: Try not to go over $300 round-trip

For flights from coast-to-coast: Example, between Los Angeles and New York

• What to pay: About $375 round-trip
• What’s too much: Try to stay under $400 round-trip

Ways to Save

Check out FareCompare’s new Summer Travel Guide. It’s loaded with money-saving tips and here are a few:

• Shop for airfare on the cheapest day/time: Tuesday afternoons
• Fly the cheapest days: Tuesday, Wednesday or Saturday
• Hub-to-hub metro city flights are generally cheaper than flying to/from smaller airports
• Connecting flights (with stops) can be a lot cheaper than direct or non-stop flights

Can’t find a deal that’s right for you? Check out these ways to save money – they really work.

Summer Vacation Travel Guide 2013

1.  Follow the ABC’s of Airfare Shopping:

Aim for flexibility: Be flexible enough to explore alternative days off so you take advantage of the cheapest days to fly which are typically Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday.

Buy tickets on Tuesdays: For domestic U.S. airline tickets, Tuesday at 3 p.m. EST is almost always the cheapest day and time to find the best airfares.

Compare prices every time you shop: Perusing one airline’s website these days is not going to cut it. Sure, sometimes your favorite carrier will have the cheapest flight, but not always. Go to an airfare comparison shopping site (like this one).

Are you a beginner? Relax and see our simple tips for the cheapest flights

2. Fly early, Fly Late

The best deals are found during periods when fewer people want to fly and here’s how it breaks down for summer:

• Fly until late May and sometimes through early to late June
• Fly starting in the mid-August or the last week of August (or beyond)

Usually prices to Europe take a steep jump at the end of May while domestic prices begin to soar in early to mid-June. Both come down significantly starting the middle or last week in August. This is truly a case of “good things come to he who waits.”

3. Increase Your Flexibility

You already know the cheapest days to fly are Tuesdays, Wednesday and Saturdays but there are cheaper times of day to fly as well. This can vary somewhat (again, a comparison shopping site makes cheaper times easier to find), but what follows is a good rule of thumb:

• Fly overnights or red-eyes
• Fly at dawn
• Fly in the late evening (and often during the dinner hour)

Notice that these are less popular times to fly, so airlines drop prices to fill up their empty seats.

Another money-saving option is to take a mini-break (or even a whole series of them). Many airlines offer weekend specials but you must be flexible enough to travel the same week they’re advertised – and these last-minute sales can also be found on the Deals Blog.

4. Target Cheaper Destinations

Cheaper domestic cities: Orlando, Denver, Boston, the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area, Ft. Lauderdale (but compare flight prices to nearby Miami, too), Austin and San Antonio.

Cheaper international cities: Dublin or Shannon, Barcelona or Madrid, plus Frankfurt and Zurich. In the Caribbean try Nassau and San Juan.

5. Save with Stops

If you’re willing to forego the convenience of a non-stop flight, you might save as much as 60% (this can vary a lot depending on arrival/departure cities and other factors). Another good rule of thumb: if it’s inconvenient, it’s cheaper.

6. Book One-Passenger-at-a-Time

I’ve discussed this trick before, and while it can’t always work, when it does it’s a winner. Say you’re shopping for a family of five. When asked to put in the “number of passengers” put “1″ instead of “5.” Continue checking the prices; if at some point as you book one passenger at a time, the price suddenly jumps, bingo! You’ve just saved some money.

Blame it on a quirk of airline reservation systems that does not allow different prices in a single reservation. If there are one or two tickets at $100, and the next highest price is $200 – and you’re booking a family of five on the same reservation – you’ll pay $200 for all five tickets. Unless you book one-by-one.

7. Avoid Costly Fees

Unless you’re flying JetBlue or Southwest, a single checked bag will usually add $50 to the cost of a single round-trip ticket and who needs that? Use a carry-on. You’ll be surprised how far (and how long) one can take you. Bonus: no worries about lost luggage.

Smaller fees add up too. If a family of five each gets the $7 sandwich on the plane, both coming and going, that’s another $70 right there. Bring a lunch from home.

More from Rick Seaney:

7 Ways to Save on Summer Airfare

After looking at my suggestions, I’d love to hear your ideas for a perfect airline.

Virgin America’s new Guide to Getting Lucky

The Perfect Airline

Here’s what it needs, and what it can do without.

1. Superior Seats

If they can’t add six inches of deluxe padding under my posterior, how about “auto snug”? No matter how large you are, you’d plant yourself in the seat and auto snug would go to work, instantly adhering to all your curves for customized comfort. It could be bigger than cheap flights!

2. Better Bag Bins

A two-pronged approach: first, as you begin to raise your bag toward the overhead bin, the bin vacuum does the rest, sucking it into the baggage compartment. Then an auto-deflator goes to work on the bag itself to shrink it (sort of like those vacuum storage bags that supposedly hold a gazillion sweaters). Bottom line: plenty of room for the carry-on crowd.

For those who check their bags, something for you too. On the perfect airline, all bags fly free.

If celebrities ran airlines

3. Worthier Wi-Fi

Maybe this drives you as nuts as it does me, and I’m talking about paying for a Wi-Fi connection that is downright lousy. This should be a priority with the airlines, since I bet more would use Wi-Fi – and pay the fee – if they knew it would work right.

Did I say fee? No fees on the perfect airline.

4. Quieter Captains

I have the utmost respect for airline pilots. They have a tough job, often long days and every now and then they’re called upon to work miracles and often do. That said, could you please desist from the commentary every time you approach the Grand Canyon? Yes, it is a marvel of nature but I’m trying to nap. Thank you in advance, Captain.

Alternative: Set up a button at each seat labeled, “Ask the pilot.” It would allow passengers to ask questions about passing landmarks, and the men and women of the cockpit could respond via headphone conversation.

5 airlines that still have a heart

5. Friendlier Food

Friendlier food means free food. In coach. And as long as I’m feeling expansive, let’s have those celebrity chefs the airlines are always bragging about, dish it up and serve it.

6. Lovelier Lavatories

This one’s easy. Put one of those clipboards in each lavatory with notations on when the bathroom was last cleaned. Of course, if you don’t like what you see – maybe it’s been way too long between cleanings – I’m not sure what your alternative would be (can’t very well go elsewhere). As I said, all of your ideas are most welcome.

More from Rick Seaney:

Imagining the Perfect Airline

Airports are littered with self-serve kiosks, carriers offer help via robotic “Jenn” and “Alex” and purchasing a ticket no longer takes place during a conversation with a real human being; the process has been reduced to clicks on a site. All to the good, many say, since it makes life quicker and often more convenient.

Yet from time to time we still crave a little human contact – the personal touch. I’m happy to say it hasn’t disappeared entirely.

Great - but what about cheap flights? Find them here

5 Airlines that Still Offer the Personal Touch

This is by no means an all inclusive list – plenty of other airlines do nice things day in and day out so consider the following just a few examples.

1. JetBlue

In the aftermath of the bombing at the Boston Marathon, JetBlue – which has a sizeable presence in the city – waived change fees for Logan travelers as did most other airlines but they also waived all bag fees and served free coffee and donuts throughout the terminal. The airline put its support for the city front and center on its website too, along with a matching offer for donations to bombing victims’ families. The CEO came out too, a visible corporate symbol of caring. As it says on the JetBlue site, the airline thinks “humanity” is important and they demonstrated that this week.

2. Delta

Last month a little boy left a shirt on a Delta flight to San Diego, but it wasn’t just any shirt – it was what his dad was wearing  when he died in a freak accident two years ago. Ever since, the seven year old has clung to the shirt as a final reminder of the father he lost. When Delta heard of the loss, employees cried then pulled themselves together to pull out all the stops: pilots searched planes, gate agents dug through trash, crews went dumpster diving – and they found it. That’s above and beyond.

3. American

If you’re on an international flight and your plane was delayed and you’re worried about making a tight connection, just look for a purple vest. That’s what American’s Global Support Center employees will be wearing as they swing into action, real-live humans who will escort you to customs/immigration and fast-track you into quicker lines via orange ‘Express Connection’ cards. “What really resonates with our customers,” an American spokesman told me, “is being met proactively by a human being.” There it is again, the human touch.

4. Virgin America

Someone once called this airline a party on plane and they do have a great sense of humor and a great connection with their passengers. Just recently the inflight crew on a Vegas flight learned a couple of passengers were heading there to renew their vows and figured, why wait? Cue the spontaneous mid-air ceremony complete with free drinks for all. Nice job, Virgin.

5. Southwest

Who doesn’t have a Southwest story? Whether it’s the rapping flight attendant who sings the pre-flight safety stuff or the cabin crew that gets everyone to play a rousing game of “Who’s Got the Ugliest Driver’s License Photo”, they seem to revel in their humanity.

Final thought: None of these airlines is perfect, of course. I could probably dig up plenty of passenger horror stories for each one, but – once in a while, it’s nice to remember while they can make mistakes, they also have a heart.

More from Rick Seaney:

Yes, Some Airlines Still Offer a Little “Humanity”