Some of the more scathing replies here are an image of what's hurting the legacy carriers at this time. As a freight hauler, I fly as a paying passenger on a variety of airlines very frequently. Especially when I'm going on vacation, since I have a wife and a kid and don't want to bum rides with the chance of getting split up.

Although I agree that some of the fees are fair to some but not to others, some of them are rather ridiculous. There is where I decide who I'm going to fly with. If your airline is going to treat me like cattle I might as well go with the cheapest I can find. I don't need to pay extra just to say I flew with brand-x.

As an example, American no longer flies nonstop between Orlando and San Juan, but JetBlue, Airtran and Spirit do. Why would that be? I recently flew between the two cities on American via Miami. What a goat rope?

As another example, when you buy a one way ticket on one of these discount carriers, you pay a fair price, not the penalty one way rip-off that the legacy carriers ask for.

Have you checked how much Southwest charges for a flight change, checked bag, drink?

You don't always get what you pay for. Might as well go cheap.