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Airline consumers drive the discussions on voice calls on planes, growing government taxation of travel and effects of mergers on airline passengers.
Last week the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protection (ACACP) met at the Department of Transportation (DOT). Charlie Leocha, head of Travelers United sits on the committee. He noted in his opening remarks:
Are voice calls on aircraft all bad, or can there be compromise?
With voice calls, we face a visceral reaction against permitting them. The first reaction from consumers is, “No, hell no.” But in other areas of the world, voice calls on planes are not causing a stir. And, many people are old enough to remember that phones on planes that were once in the seat backs of many aircraft never seemed to cause too much trouble for passengers. In the future, speaking on planes will be expensive and with control of the call system, airline crews can control the system inflight.
With new proposals, government-imposed taxes and fees will reach more than $60 per connecting flight, before any airfare!
With government-imposed taxes and fees, passengers are facing steep increases in these fees and are footing more than 70 percent, perhaps more, of running the aviation system in the country, we need to ratchet back these taxes and fees on travelers. Economist after economist, politician after politician and business executives all testify how important to the overall economy the aviation network is today. The support of this network needs to be more fairly spread across our country’s citizens and not carried only by passengers in the system.
Why should airline passengers be paying millions of dollars in customs and border protection fees when those streaming into the country every day by automobiles pay no charges? Worse, these fees are slated for an increase if Congress doesn’t hold the line.
Is airline consolidation good or bad for passengers?
The American Airlines/US Airways merger that was approved brought our country to a system where four airlines control 87 percent of airline traffic and where three airline alliances control 80 percent of international traffic. It is not hard to understand why the words “record profits” are turning up in airline corporate reports over and over.
This goes beyond simple fees: squeezing more passengers on planes, fuel surcharges that stay high when gasoline plummets and higher airfares. Small airports are seeing cutbacks in service. International service that promises hundreds of thousands of new tourists that will pump revenues into local economies, and our tourism economy, is being stifled.
(A Webcast of the meeting should be available here later this week.)
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