A House Committee has advanced on a 63-0 vote a must-pass bill that includes a controversial provision that would allow airlines to obscure the actual cost of airline tickets. It is essential the full House of Representatives or, as a last resort, the Senate rejects this anti-customer provision.
House Committee Advances Bill That Would Obscure True Cost Of Airfare
Last month, I shared details about a provision slipped into the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization package that would obscure all-in pricing on airline tickets.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has now (unanimously) advanced a bill to the full House that does exactly that.
Here is the specific language in §701 the bill:
IN GENERAL. It shall not be an unfair or deceptive practice under subsection (a) for a covered entity to state in an advertisement or solicitation for passenger air transportation the base airfare for such air transportation if the covered entity clearly and separately discloses—
(A) the government-imposed taxes and fees associated with the air transportation; and
(B) the total cost of the air transportation.FORM OF DISCLOSURE.
(A) IN GENERAL. For purposes of paragraph (1), the information described in paragraphs (1)(A) and (1)(B) shall be disclosed in the advertisement or solicitation in a manner that clearly presents the information to the consumer.(B) INTERNET ADVERTISEMENTS AND SOLICITATIONS. For purposes of paragraph (1), with respect to an advertisement or solicitation for passenger air transportation that appears on a website, the information described in paragraphs (1)(A) and (1)(B) may be disclosed through a link or pop-up, as such terms may be defined by the Secretary, in a manner that is easily accessible and viewable by the consumer.
In short, this language would allow “base airfare” to be displayed while excluding government taxes and fees, provided there is a link to the all-in price or the final price is disclosed in some other way. Practically, you might see an airfare but have to click on a pop-up window to display the added taxes and may not see the actual all-in price until the final purchase screen.
While the airline lobby embraces this, I cannot think of a more anti-consumer measure when it comes to selling airfare.
The current solution works perfectly well. The all-in price must be displayed at all points of the search process, through airlines are free to show you how much of that ticket prices is government taxes and fees.
For example, here’s how United does it:
And Spirit:
(Spirt also breaks out its bogus fees and tries to disguise them as government taxes, but at least you always know the all-in pricing)
Finally, I must stress again that the notion that government taxes are not part of your airfare is also absurd: it takes money to support the infrastructure and air traffic control necessary to operate commercial flights and it is reasonable that airline customers support the infrastructure they use. Airports and air traffic control networks are not privately owned. It is foolishness to think that the government or airport authority is somehow just taking a cut without giving anything in return.
Amendment Offered To House Bill
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D – IL) has offered an amendment to the bill that would strip this provision. The rambunctious Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D – NY) supports this amendment and has urged her colleagues to delete this provision before the House votes on the bill:
“Consumers booking airline tickets deserve to know the full price of a ticket at the start of their transaction to avoid surprise fees and to easily comparison shop. The airline industry is using this must-pass legislation to unravel air travel price transparency laws that have been in place for the last decade.”
She is correct.
Let’s hope the House solves this problem so the Senate does not have to.
CONCLUSION
The House Transportation Committee has unanimously passed a bill that would allow airlines and online travel agencies to obscure pricing. By slipping this into essential legislation, airline lackeys in Congress are showing their anti-consumer sentiment. There is no valid ground for this provision of the bill.
I like the all-in pricing currently used to compare airfares, trust me… but I also don’t see why the airline industry is the only industry required to cover up for the Government’s taxation and pretend as though the full amount is going to the airlines? It’s not and it’s a means for the government to cover how much taxation they lay on the aviation infrastructure. I don’t have a problem with taxation, I’m not a nut job thinking taxes should go away, but I don’t like it when the government tries to obscure the amount of taxation they put on their citizens which is what happens today by making it look to the average consumer that all $368 (to use your example) is going to the carrier. This matters a lot more in international fares where the taxation, particularly ex-Europe, is very high.
Hotels get to show their nightly rate ex-taxes, stores do that, Amtrak only shows the fare, ex-taxes, etc. While it’s nice that one area of transportation shows all-in pricing, I don’t think it’s fair that the aviation industry is the only one forced to obscure government taxation in such a way. A better means would be that airlines only have to show all income that goes to them (to your Spirit example) so they can’t hide BS charges like a fuel charge, etc.
I don’t think hotels should be able to get away with this either, but arguably with hotels there is a wider delta between a sales tax or even infrastructure tax and how it benefits the hotel.
Airlines use public property and rely upon the government for a number of things including security screening, ATC, and the airports themselves.
So it is a Bipartisan bill, so def alot of people owing the Airlines.
The only people that are trying strip the airline pricing part are democrats. Also President Biden has railed against hidden fees so hopefully if this ever made it to his desk he would veto. Thankfully there are a few people in govt that care a little bit about their constituents
Face disagree with your shill propaganda.
I’m sorry, which republicans oppose it? Must suck to worship people that wish to harm you
You’re clueless if you think “president” Biden cares about anything other than enriching his criminal garbage family.
You mispelled trump
Hmm you either can only barely read English, come up with the lamest rejoinders, or you’re just plain dumb. Which is it Billy Bob?
That’s a complete lie and you know it. You are so clearly a Russian bot. Even a click farm Russian wouldn’t post such blatant lies.
It couldn’t unanimously pass the committee with just Democratic votes.
There is sometimes bipartisan mismanagement and bad bipartisan decisions. I just read yesterday that Medicare is being cut more than 3%. Payments for office visits for doctors are being cut. That is bad for the elderly.
US federal govt. kowtows to the airline industry too much to begin with; let’s hope there’s enough support to strip this part out.
Not often I agree with AOC but she’s correct on this one.
My thoughts are this is another case of the Reps NOT reading the entire bill and lobbyists for the airlines sneaking a line in there that those voting don’t realize what it does.
Your last statement sums it up. Taking out the politics and boogeymen politician names for a moment, how can anyone, regardless of their political stripes, argue that this is a positive thing for consumers? The airlines (and similarly hotels) pay their lobbyists very well to push their agenda to support their bottom line. They don’t care about the consumers, no matter if you agree with them on other policies or not.
Absurd. Instead they should be demanding to see exactly how our tax dollars were spent bailing out the airlines, how they used that money, and where they were audited for compliance.
Let Lina Khan and her band of Bolsheviks put their time and anti-trust theater to a good cause for change and kill this ridiculous piece of legislation.
Treat airlines and hotels, and rental cars, and concert / sports tickets the same. Crack down on resort and destination fees and make everything equal.
I do find it odd that airlines were pretty much the only ones singled out with the “all-in” price rule. Hotels and cruise lines don’t have to advertise the “all-in” price and spoiler… they never do. That $49 sale at a 4* Vegas hotel ends up at over $100.
Seems like a reasonable approach would be to require all in the industry to advertise their products just as all stores do, with everything but tax included. Want to charge a $5 technology/convenience fee? Include it in the advertised fare.
I am all for mandatory all-inclusive pricing for hotels as well. But the airline issue is of particular concern because it would mark a regression.
Why should tax be excluded from the price if everybody has to pay it?
Many BULK fares (mostly from wholesalers and tour operators) have done this since the 70s showing the fare AMOUNT as “$ Bulk” in the fare box and then actually showing the totals of all taxes in the tax boxes section of the ticket with the taxes shown as the total ticket cost (Often shown on the bottom/left side of ticket coupons/receipts). Differently on e-tickets.
I’m curious why a political troll like “Billy Bob” is allowed to continue to post here. He adds nothing but a narrow mind and hate.
Eh, most of the time I just ignore him. He’s retarded.
And your a 35 year old virgin
Let him speak! He may be annoying, and dumb, and insufferable, but as Americans we should respect free speech, even if we don’t agree. Also I think this is one of his few social outlets, aside from his collection of talking Trump voodoo dolls.
Plus he’s amusing and fun to ridicule.
Ridicule me? Good one. You are a joke that loves Trump, A man that wouldn’t pee on you if you were on fire
You’re about as American and Tik Tok influencer….
Intelligent counterweight to all the MAGA cucks who proliferate here…?
He’s just saying that the Democrats are supportive of stripping out the deceptive pricing bill while the Republicans want to leave it in. No harm in showing who supports the consumer.
is that why zero democrats voted to stop it?
Adding isn’t a strength of Republicans is it? Actually, any form of thinking or processing is challenging isn’t it?
Yea I forgot about Biden forcing the secret service to stay at hotels he owns, and charging inflated rates for rooms so they can protect him. You’re right how could I be so silly. And it’s Biden that’s facing dozens of felony counts. How could I be so blind
This was meant for chi hsuan above calling Biden a criminal
Yea. I shouldn’t be on here, but posters like John dogas that hate all non white people should be. Face it, you just dont like that I don’t let all the America hating Republicans spread their filth without pushback
Billy Bob, you are an important voice here too. Like Chi Hsuan states we balance each other. And what would be a post without snarky Jan? Or balanced Stuart or Jerry?
Let’s face it, we need all the voices these days
Hehe, I appreciate the shoutout
You call it filth, rational people call it the truth.
The problem is the conversation goes straight downhill- which is obviously what he wants. I guess just ignoring him is the best response.
If it’s good for airlines to show all inclusive pricing, why not do so for the far larger business sector of retailing in the USA? It really peeves me that the price I see in a store for, say, a pair of jeans is lower than the price I end up having to pay at the cash register due to sales tax.
Aren’t the two cases – airline and retail – identical when it comes to obscuring the final price?
I thought about this as well and there’s a key difference in that stores largely only add the taxes at the end of the transaction. But with airlines and hotels, they’ve begun to engage in a “tipping culture” of such and start hiding fees (such as the Spirit Airlines example above) and blame “Big Guberment” therefore creating an unequal playing field. This particularly applies to fees you cannot avoid unlike baggage fees that are now an increasingly de-facto industry standard.
I think it’s great that Airlines have educated consumers as to the taxes that go into the price of their ticket voluntarily at the checkout page which consumers can choose to act upon by notifying their representative rather than bait-and-switched with a lower price and then “educated” at the checkout page.
I’d be more concerned about hospitals….those are far more egregious markups. At least Virginia is doing something about it.
Rambunctious means “noisy and out of control”. Why would you call AOC rambunctious when you agree with what she supports. Perhaps you are incapable for saying anything good about AOC.
I tend to find her antics counterproductive much like those of Sara Nelson but certainly agree with her here (and on many issues).
I don’t really think she has “antics”. Advocating for transparency is doing her job. I think she gets judged harshly because she is (1) a young (2) woman (3) and person of color (4) who advocates for her constituents (5) rather than big business.
Lots of people do antics on both sides, like those who are holding up DoD promotions or want to move the FBI HQ to Alabama. Those are real antics.