Travel Industry Urges Congress to Stop Airlines from Violating Federal Aviation Act

Business Travel Coalition (BTC) transmitted a letter signed by some 150 organizations to Congressional conference committee members negotiating a long-term reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Signatories urged conferees to include language that will prevent some airlines from continuing to violate Section 41712 of the U.S. Federal Aviation Act. (The signatory letter can be downloaded here.)

Specifically, these industry-leading organizations ask that Congress direct the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to within 180 days require airlines to disclose optional fee information (e.g., checked baggage charges, at-airport ticketing fees, etc.) in the same electronic and other formats used to publish airfares themselves.

Signatories to the letter expressed to conferees that Section 41712 prohibits “unfair or deceptive” practices in the sale of air transportation by airlines and ticket agents. The continuing failure of airlines to share information about their optional fees with ticket agents violates Section 41712 by making it impossible for consumers to efficiently compare air transportation costs among competing providers.

New consumer-protection rules introduced by DOT last week require airlines to disclose on their websites if there will be additional baggage fees and where consumers can go to find them. This is a positive step but the rule does little to facilitate comparison-shopping, and applies to just one of many optional fees.

Consumers continue to pay supra premium prices - billions of dollars in fees - for optional services because the inability to efficiently compare the total cost of air travel (base airfares and fees) on an apples-to-apples basis across multiple airlines guarantees that these prices go undisciplined by the marketplace. This greatly frustrates individual consumers as well as major corporations that purchase millions of dollars in air transportation services.

BTC believes that given the rapidly expanding list of optional services, airlines should indeed want to benefit from accelerated consumer acceptance of optional fees and sales revenues possible only through traditional brick-and-mortar and online travel agency points-of-sale as well as through corporate online booking tools utilized by millions of business travelers.

However, for three and one-half years, despite the substantial purchasing power of major corporations, and their continuing calls for fee transparency, airlines have refused to provide optional fee information.