tonight on "nightline," the fee blitz. airlines charge for this and this and this. and we check in for two days of air travel to see how all those airline fees add up, and how you can beat them, with a little guy dance from an expert. kill zone. it's business as usual in the gulf. seven months after disaster struck. but here's what you aren't seeing. a mile below the surface. so, how dangerous is it? we take an exclusive submarine tour. and, the dude abides. "the big lebowski" flowed in theaters in '98. before it became a huge cult

hit. now it's celebrated in festivals world wide, and that is a "sign of the times." >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, this is "nightline," december 3rd, 2010. >> good evening, i'm terry moran. and we're going to begin tonight with a topic everyone agrees on. because everyone hates them. airline feels. by now, most of the american flying public seems to have resigned itself to shelling out an extra 65 bucks to check a bag or 30 bucks for more leg room. but is there any way to combat those surcharges? well, to answer that question, ryan owens embarked on a marathon reporting mission that spanned two days, seven cities and 6,000 miles. here's what he found out. >> to know me is to fly with me. >> reporter: there's george

clooney in "up in the air." and then there's me in this assignment. my marching orders were to fly in and out of as many air ports as i could in two days. los angeles. in st. louis now. during the busy holiday travel season. completely full flight. middle seat. >> service to los angeles. >> reporter: and no taking advantage of the perks i'm used to as a frequent flyer. no upgrades, no free bags. i even loaded myself down with four checked bags for every flight. >> these are the claim checks for your bags and you have a good trip, my friend. >> reporter: thank you. a workout for me and for my corporate credit card. four bags. $200 in baggage. $260. and we swipe again. my grueling grind started at dfw. i flew to chicago and st. louis,

then headed west to los angeles and san francisco. next to phoenix, back to l.a. before finally heading home to dallas. that's almost 6,000 miles. we're not even in the rope line yet. every step of the way i waited in line to check all of those bags. to get through security, to board a plane where i sometimes found a cat under the seat across from me and always a crying baby right in front of me. >> sorry. i can't tell whether you said yes or no. >> reporter: yes. to make it even more difficult, i didn't plan ahead. chicago. and made reservations -- no, i don't want to go to albania. only hours before each flight. no. i finally got through to a human being. my reward? >> handling fees may apply. >> reporter: a $25 handling fee. okay.

speaking of, on my 6,000-mile journey, i quickly learned those new airline fees add up fast. and sometimes to more than the actual ticket. take my united flight from chicago to st. louis. it cost just $154. but my four bags were $260. i spent $14 for extra leg room. $39 for something called the premiere security line. add that $25 fee for the frustrating phone call and i paid $338 in fees, that's more than twice what my ticket cost. >> they put a credit card reader everywhere, in the seat back, in the flight attendant's hand, in the gate agent's hand. >> reporter: rick is the ceo of the website fare compare.com. he says all of that nickel and diming has essentially saved the airline industry. two years ago, many major carriers were staring at bankruptcy. not now. >> $2.7 billion in profit in the

third quarter. this is after about $11 billion in losses the previous couple three years. >> reporter: that might not be much consolation to travelers. especially those who rarely fly. >> what these fees really are doing is targeting, sort of, the unloyal families of four. that's really who they target, because people that have elite status, the fees are being waived. >> reporter: this much travel -- >> thank you, have a good night. >> reporter: under these conditions has another name. >> if you're looking for the lowest fare, say, i'm flexible. >> reporter: torture. and just when i was about to reach my breaking point, i found a travel companion who knows all about breaking points. >> thank you very much. >> reporter: yes, that man posing for pictures in the airport is america's favorite frustrated flyer, steven slater. the jet blue flight attendant who notoriously took his job and shoved it. who can forget how he cursed out rude passengers on the plane's loud speaker, deployed the

emergency slide, grabbed two beers and slid his way into history as a cult hero. >> i don't advocate what i did, but i am glad that people did get a little bit of a laugh out of it. >> reporter: it turns out flying with slater has challenges of its own. boarding takes a little longer because the gate agent is star struck. >> you do what most people want to do. let me shake your hand. >> thankfully that's been the response that i've gotten since this whole thing started, so -- >> reporter: which is, basically, you said what i wanted to say? >> pretty much, yeah. >> reporter: i wanted to ask slater what advice he had for holiday travelers, but i soon figured out his first step is fly first class, which is where i left him as i headed for the cheap seats. >> please don't hesitate to ask. >> reporter: halfway through the flight, i coaxed him back to coach for a chat. a lot of travelers, including me, are going to be in this position, and by that, i mean

the middle seat. what advice do you have for them? >> well, there is one seat worse. and it's further back, behind the toilet and it's for the flight attendant. >> reporter: things have changed for people that have not flown in awhile. what can they expect? >> a lot longer lines and a lot more crowd. you've got to be early, be as early as you possibly can. nonstop flights, try to fly nonstop when possible. limit your exposure to the whole airport experience. >> reporter: one more piece of advice. steven slater says some of those fees are actually worth it. >> it might be $10 more for that aisle seat. it might be $10 more for early advance boarding that's going to guarantee -- >> reporter: it starts to add up. >> it does, but you know what, it's probably going to be less than the session at the therapist office when you get home from the trip, too. >> reporter: i need one of those right now, actually, after what i've been through here. with that, i let slater get back to first class, a seat his

former colleagues clearly think he's earned. once we landed in los angeles, america's favorite flyer was home for the holidays. and this weary travel earl had just one flight to go. oh, and then that trip to the therapist. >> please keep your seat belts fastened. >> reporter: i'm ryan owens for "nightline" at a cruising altitude of 30,000 feet. >> marathon flying there. thanks to ryan owens for that report. when we come back, we go to the gulf. shocking scenes from the ocean floor. oil everywhere. we take a submarine tour of the gulf oil spill site. p[ male announcer ] how can

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for a month after the gulf oil spill last april, no one really knew how bad it was. there wasn't much to see on the surface. then, a team of scientists detected gigantic 30-mile long underwater oil plumes larger than manhattan. well, today, as bp sought to radically downsize government estimates of how much oil was actually spilled, members of that same team went down in a submarine, and they invited our matt gutman to go along. >> reporter: we headed out to the spot closest to the oil spill for a submarine ride to the gulf floor. it's 4:30 in the morning. we're about to get into this pickup. got everything loaded up. scott, is this common? >> no, it's not.

when you get offshore, it's a little rough. everything tends to be a lot more dangerous. >> reporter: then, we're off. pretty cold on this boat going about 40 or 50 miles an hour. just a couple of miles that way is where the bp rig sank and technically it's still a crime scene. pretty cozy in here. the water laps over the hull as we rocket downwards 5,000 feet. we should be seeing all kinds of life here. but on this moonscape -- >> there's nothing crawling around on the surface of the bottom. it's just worm tubes that are collapsed over. >> reporter: dr. mandy joye is leading a national since foundation expedition to the heart of this spill and the grave of many a sea creature. >> there's a lot of dead worms on the bottom. >> reporter: we course through the water like some alien body. inside this titanium sphere, we're bundled up against the

cold. temperatures inside plummet to about 40 degrees. it's the size of a car's interior. cramped. so, this is where the pilot would sit and he would be scrunched up against this little tiny window there, looking in there. there he is right now, sean. this is not a very convenient place to be if you're tall. >> reporter: but it offered an unparalleled view of the destruction to the area near the site of the spill. >> oil is a complex mixture and it's -- you can sort of make an analogy of eating, you know, chocolate versus cardboard. the chocolate's going to get eaten pretty quickly. the cardboard, not so much. >> reporter: it looks like a blizzard hit this spot. it's called oily fluff, and it's thick. >> that looks like about three or four inches of material. >> reporter: it's not exactly oil, but oily material. our pilot, sean, uses these robotic arms to deploy dozens of so-called push cords. they stuff them into the seabed,

then pull out a sample to see what's inside this mud. you can actually see the oil smudging in the tubes. >> reporter: we turned on the ultraviolet light. and look at this. those inkblots? all oil. and 5,000 feet down, it looks like these sea fans and coral are powdered with this oily material. joye and the other scientists dispute a government report that the vast majority of the oil has dissipated. >> it sank and it's still there. and it's going to degrade very slowly. >> reporter: how slowly? >> years to decades. >> reporter: bp is now trying to challenge the government's best guess for how much oil the company's well spilled into the gulf. believed to be over 170 million gallons. you're saying you overestimated it by 50%. that's tremendous. >> if they thought that was a problem, why weren't they more forthcoming all along in getting good data? >> reporter: ian is an ocean nothinger if at florida state. why weren't they? >> well, they want to be able --

it's in their interest to be able to obscure with the discharge was. >> reporter: a new government estimate on how much oil spilled could save the british company billions in fines. bp responded that, "given all the uncertain tips surrounding the flow, a reliable estimate of the flow rate over time should account for all of the rell vanlt factors." like the fact that part of the oil may have been constricted from coming out by the twisted well itself. ry guardless, the result down here is the same. but catching a glimpse of this devastation in person is invaluable. and at times, magical. finally, after ten hours, leg cramps, frozen toes, the light. and, in the dimming sunlight, a hand shake awaits, your shoes, and a chance to stretch your legs. good to be on land. and, for the newly initiated to this small group of people who have been to the bottom and back, an ice bath.

a sub mariner's right of passage. for "nightline," i'm matt gutman aboard the atlantis research vessel, gulch porf port, missis. >> great reporting from matt gutman in the gulf. up next, the first cult classic movie of the dvd age, and now, "big lebowski" fans around the world are organizing and now, "big lebowski" fans around the world are organizing festivals to celebrate it. p

>> announcer: "nightline"

continues from new york city with terry moran. >> now, if you don't know the 1998 cohen brothers movie "the big lebowski," or even if you do, you might be surprised to learn that the confusing tale about a man who just rants his rug back, it really pulled the room together, well, it is for some people not only hollywood's greatest achievement, it's a model to live by. and for jeremy hubbard, that is a "sign of the times." ♪ >> reporter: dude, there is something very surreal happening in louisville, kentucky, where legions of bathrobe clad, white russian drinking men and women are roaming around a bowling alley. >> that's, like, your opinion, man. >> reporter: along with hundreds of other men and women.

>> mark it zero. >> find the cash machine. >> you never want to college, did you? >> reporter: they're gather heard for their shared love for a film that was a box office gutter ball. >> over the line! >> huh? >> i'm sorry, smoemy. you were over the line. >> reporter: if you've never seen "the big lebowski," you're out of your element. it's a bowling stoner buddy caper that centers on a burnout named the dude. >> you know, el duderino. >> reporter: and his spoiled piece of carpet. >> did i urinate on your rug? hello? do you speak english, sir? >> reporter: with a plot like that, it may be no surprise to the outsider this movie flopped at theaters 12 years ago. but these fans soon made it the first cult classic of the dvd age. how many times have you seen it? >> over 100.

definitely. >> reporter: for the 800 people here, some who traveled thousands of miles, lebowski and dudism have become a way of life. an obsession. a religion. >> there is an official religion called dudism. the world's slowest growing religion. >> reporter: will and scott created lebowski fest. they've watched the film more than 100 times and can recite it line by line. >> everything i know i learned from the movie. >> the jewish day of rest. >> reporter: now, a sea of guys come dressed as the dude or his best friend or as jesus, the sex offender bowling champ. there are roving lebowski fests around the country. >> i love the movie. they love the movie. they don't just dress up as characters from the movie. they dress up as lines of dialogue in the movie. >> the dude.

i have that right there. the white russian, which is what the dude always drinks. the rug, which really ties the thing together. >> reporter: fans are dressing up and downing white russians an lebowski-themed pubs from berlin to glasgow. >> careful, man, there's a beverage here! >> reporter: the cult is spreading. there are stores like this one in new york city that sell lebowski-only merchandise. its proprietor comes to work in his bathrobe. there's even a porno parody of the film. and now it's in academia. >> we received proposals who wanted to talk about the movie. >> reporter: edward is a professor at indiana university who co-edited a collection of academic papers ands says fleshing out the movie's subtle undertones. >> it's a western. it's a noir. a buddy flick, a sports flick.

a stoner flick. a feminist avant-garde flick. if you want to talk about medieval grail quests, it's in there. hamlet, it's in there. >> reporter: jeff bridges told our bill weir, to this day, there's no escaping the lebowski persona. >> who do you get yelled at the most on the street? >> dude! dude! >> reporter: so, you can imagine the thrill at lebowski fest a few years back -- >> please welcome jeff bridges! >> reporter: when the dude himself abuilded. >> when this movie came out, originally, i was so damn disappointed. you can imagine, because it didn't do much. but you guys -- you kept this thing alive. >> reporter: fresh off an oscar win -- >> dude! >> reporter: bridges didn't make it this year. but there was some star power. >> liam, get up here. >> we're going to [ bleep ] you

up. >> jimmy: james huzer played a bowler in the movie, a bit part. but in this crowd, you'd think he's demere niro. you're a big deal here. >> i'm not an actor. but i turned into this and i love it. >> reporter: that is the lure of lebowski fest. celebrating every little detail of a movie, ignored by the masses. the dialogue -- >> 8-year-olds, dude. >> reporter: the demeanor. the dude. >> for me, it's kind of like life, for me, you know? good things happen, bad things happen. you stumble through life and it all turns out okay. >> reporter: i'm jeremy hubbard, abiding for "nightline" in louisville, kentucky. >> and thanks to jeremy hubbard and the dude. when we come back, we're going to turn to the closing argument. obama in afghanistan. but first, here's jimmy kimmel with what's coming up next.

>> jimmy: tonight, david cedar ris is with us. we have music from nicky min imagine and our old pal ben ñ ñ? p