What factors are the most important when considering an airline ticket purchase? Is it price? What other issues are important?
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consumer travel alliance
When the Consumer Travel Alliance asked what mode of transportation they planned to use in 2011, most respondents indicated they would stay the course by cruising, driving, flying and using mass transport roughly the same as they did in 2010. However, a significant number of travelers said they intended to fly less and drive more.
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The Consumer Travel Alliance (CTA) and the Business Travel Coalition (BTC) filed reply comments to those filed by a group of airlines regarding transparency of airline fees. The airline comments are seeking to present the disagreements about a pending Department of Transportation rulemaking that may mandate up-front and clear dislosure of airline fees at the same time as airfares are disclosed as an internal business issue. Both CTA and BTC feel that these are clearly consumer issues.
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It’s been more than two years since most major airlines “unbundled” their fares and began charging passengers for the first checked bag. And although air travelers are now paying more for their luggage than ever — $2.7 billion last year, compared with just $1.1 billion in 2008 — they are deeply unhappy about it, according to a new poll.
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The CTA today released an estimate showing what the impact of these fees will be on travelers’ pocketbooks over the busy Thanksgiving travel period – a whopping $167 million, the equivalent of more than 12 million turkeys purchased at retail.
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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.
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The Consumer Travel Alliance (CTA) today released a video analysis showing that major U.S. airlines are not disclosing the vast majority of existing ancillary fees on their websites, despite regular statements to the contrary by the airlines. CTA and other leading consumer and travel organizations are meeting with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today to support his efforts to bring full transparency to airline fees.
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Hidden airline fees had a bad week as politicians, travel agents and consumers all took a swing at airlines for not revealing their fees through the basic central reservation systems and “hiding” them on their own websites to be revealed “at the time of purchase.”
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ConsumerTraveler.com in conjunction with the Consumer Travel Alliance is conducting a survey about airline fees. Do they make a difference? What fees are most important to travelers?
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The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) and the Consumer Travel Alliance (CTA) have written a joint letter to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the Senate Commerce Committee, the House Transportation Committee and the Senate and House Aviation Subcommittee Chairmen urging them to mandate that airlines release all fee information at the same time that they release airfare information.
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