It seems that every week the airlines cook up a new nickel-and-diming scheme to raise revenue – from charging for blankets to bag checking. But in the process of protecting the bottom line – or what’s left of it – they are putting passenger loyalty in jeopardy.

But can you blame them? With several major carriers on the brink of bankruptcy or insolvency, airlines are running scared.

“You’re dealing with panicked wildebeests now,” said Mike Boyd, and aviation consultant with the Boyd Group in Denver, Colorado. “The airlines view passengers the same way a farmer views a herd.”

So that’s it. We’re just livestock passively waiting to be milked by the air carriers upon whom we depend to get us from point A to point B for all of life’s milestones – weddings, family reunions, college graduations …

And that’s just the point, according to Boyd. Unless you’re within driving or train distance of your destination, you HAVE to fly, or not go at all. Even though there are dozens of airlines to choose from, they are all maddeningly consistent in terms of their high ticket prices and fees, with the possible exception of Southwest.

Many have questioned this unpopular business model — why would airlines breed resentment in the very customers they are hoping to attract? Since charging for everything that isn’t nailed down is creating such backlash, why not just raise base fares instead?

Boyd says that such a move would actually create worse results for the airlines, believe it or not.

“To make enough revenue to break even using that approach, they’d have to raise the price of each ticket by several hundred dollars,” he said. “And people wouldn’t go for that.”

Instead, air carriers have been taking a piecemeal approach and boosting their bottom line by adding á lá carte fees, while at the same time raising fares in smaller, supposedly more palatable increments.

One of these fare hikes is coming in the next few weeks. This fall many carriers will cut routes and seats by up to 12 percent, further reducing choices and upping prices. Fares are expected to be 20 percent higher than last fall, and travelers have little choice but to suck it up and pay.

“Every seat is full, so they can get away with it,” Boyd said. “And airlines are pulling down capacity, so the seats are going to stay full.”

Since airlines have slashed the number of available seats and flight options, reducing competition and consumer choices, they don’t have much incentive to foster loyalty. So it should not come as a big surprise that frequent-flier programs — which were originally intended to reward customers for their business — are also under siege. On Monday, Continental Airlines announced that it would become the latest in a long line of air carriers to reduce the number of miles passengers earn on short flights.

Many other airlines, such as US Airways, have reduced the number of “bonus” miles they award to fliers, and in August, Delta added an award ticket fuel surcharge of $25 for domestic flights and $50 for international. Most airlines have already upped the amount of miles needed to earn a free seat.

All the fees and limits imposed on frequent-flier miles not only make it harder to accrue them, but in some cases nearly impossible to use them. Which apparently does not bother the airlines all that much.

Boyd’s assessment of the situation is pretty blunt. “They’re supposed to be rewarding you for brand loyalty, but instead they are just ignoring you,” he said.

And the news gets even worse. Boyd predicts that even though the financial picture for the airlines will get rosier next year, passengers won’t get any relief.

“By end of next year revenues and costs will come to equilibrium for the airlines,” he said. “But the fees are here to stay, I think.”

By Karen Elowitt for PeterGreenberg.com.

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