Consumer and travel groups including the Consumer Travel Alliance, the National Consumers League, and the Business Travel Coalition met with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood yesterday to offer their support for his efforts to require transparency in airline ticket pricing. Participants in the meeting presented Secretary LaHood with a letter from organizations representing more than 300 U.S. and Europe consumer groups urging the mandatory disclosure of all airline fees.
The full text of the letter follows:
September 20, 2010
Mr. Ray LaHood
Secretary of Transportation
U.S. Department of Transportation
1200 New Jersey Ave, SE
Washington, DC 20590
Secretary LaHood:
The undersigned are a group of consumer leaders who are concerned about the current state of airline pricing. We are signing this letter to urge the Department of Transportation to require airlines to disclose all fees in advance through every ticketing channel in which airlines sell their seats so that consumers can compare the total cost of travel.
Since the airlines have begun to “unbundle” their airfares and charge a fee for baggage that was once included in the price of the airline ticket, it seems that the advertised airfare will almost always be subjected to additional and surprising airline fees. Fees are imposed for checked baggage, seat reservations, early boarding, frontof- the plane and other seats, pillows and blankets and many other services that were once a part of the airline ticket costs.
Rather than calling for regulation of the amount of these fees, we are simply asking for true fee transparency. Hidden fees are a violation of a traveler’s most basic right: to know how much they will have to pay for their trip. When two out of every three* air travelers say they have been surprised by hidden fees at the airport, you know the current system is broken and needs to be fixed.
Airlines should have to share their fees with every traveler, through every ticketing channel in which they participate, to every point of sale. With the airline world of fees so complex with so many variations on each fee, this is the only way consumers can compare prices on the total cost of travel.
The airlines have every right to make a fair profit and set fares and fees that allow them to do so. But they have no right to try to hide those prices from their customers.
Thank you for your continued support of airline consumers.
Sincerely,
*Consumer Travel Alliance survey conducted among 1,396 air travelers from August 20-31, 2010
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
