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A newly proposed DOT rule would require airlines and ticket agents, including travel agents, to disclose fees for carry-on and checked bags from the beginning of a fare inquiry.
But it remains to be seen whether the rule, put forth by the now former DOT secretary Anthony Foxx with just three days left in his tenure, will find support with the new administration.
“The Trump administration has said that they want to get rid of regulations that don’t add value,” said travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research Group. “Arguably, this is one of those regulations that teeters on the fence of whether it does or doesn’t add value.”
If enacted, the rule would mean that carriers couldn’t show a ticket price on a web interface, then show fees for baggage later in the sales process. The rule would also require airlines and ticket agents to include specific discounts on baggage fees to which a flyer would be entitled based on loyalty status, provided that the flyer provides status information as part of a search. Airlines would have to make such information, as well as full fare schedules, available to GDSs and travel agents.
“Displaying the fees for transporting carry-on and checked bags alongside the fare will make the cost of travel more transparent,” Foxx said in prepared remarks.
The initiation of the new rulemaking process comes two-and-a-half years after a DOT rulemaking process that included similar disclosure requirements for bag fees. But that proposal also called for early disclosure of any fees associated with advance seating requirements.
Further, those proposed disclosure requirements were part of a broader effort, which also included such items as enhanced data reporting requirements for airlines and disclosures about cancellation policies.
In a regulatory filing on Jan. 17, the DOT said that baggage fee disclosures were among the more controversial proposals of that 2014 process, which is why they are now to be handled separately in this new rulemaking process.
If enacted, this baggage-fee display rule would supersede a less sweeping measure enacted by the DOT in 2012. Under that rule, the opening screen of a fare search result must state if there will be additional baggage fees and tell shoppers where they can go to see those fees.
The trade group Airlines for America (A4A) last week opposed the Obama administration’s 11th-hour proposal, saying that dictating distribution and commercial practices to the airlines would only benefit “third parties who distribute tickets, not the flying public.”
“It would be difficult to find an industry that is more transparent than the airline industry; customers always know exactly what they are paying for before they buy,” A4A spokesman Vaughn Jennings wrote in an email.
In contrast, ASTA is supportive of the proposal.
“ASTA has long believed that consumers deserve full transparency in airfares and ancillary fees, including the ability to buy those optional services, regardless of the channel where they elect to book their travel,” senior vice president of government and industry affairs Eben Peck said in a statement. “In short, the roughly 50% of consumers who use a travel agent should be as informed and empowered as those who buy directly from airlines.”
For his part, Harteveldt said that difficulties could arise in the details of requiring the display of baggage fees from the beginning of a ticket query. For example, he said, some airlines charge varying bag fees based upon whether they are paid in advance or at the airport. Some people get free checked bags with credit cards, and then there are fees that vary based on a flyer’s loyalty status.
“How are airlines supposed to present this?” Harteveldt wondered.
Interested parties have 60 days from Jan. 17 to comment on the proposal.
The DOT, which by then will most likely be run by Trump’s nominee for DOT secretary, Elaine Chao, will take final action on the proposal.
Along with the proposed baggage-fee display rule, last week’s regulatory filing asks for comments on whether airlines and ticket agents should also be required to disclose other fees, such as those for cancellations and ticket changes, when providing airfare information.
Sourse: travelweekly.co
