Yesterday, representatives of the Consumer Travel Alliance, Consumers Union, National Consumers League and Consumer Federation of America met with the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to discuss the new DOT rulemaking that when released in the next 60-or-so days will create a new set of regulations that will change the passenger-rights landscape more than any government act since deregulation.
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The Department of Transportation (DOT) is in the final throes of staffing a proposed rulemaking and reports are than it is having trouble in bureaucracyland. Let’s hope that the core of consumer protections holds true for the three most important groundbreaking portions of the rulemaking.
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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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The Department of Transportation (DOT) proposed rulemaking (NPRM) has stirred up plenty of controversy. Any time an agency of the government takes up the mantel of consumer protection, business is going to cringe. Ultimately, we know what’s good for customers is normally good for business. But these new proposed regulations are crossing a new line — international borders.
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Yesterday seven U.S. senators sent a letter to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, commending his leadership and his department’s efforts to protect consumers. In the letter, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), George Lemieux (R-FL), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) and Mark Begich (D-AK) urge LaHood to “continue requiring increased disclosure of ancillary fees on airline tickets as well as facilitating that disclosure by requiring the sharing of fee information by air carriers to travel agents and online travel companies.”
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DOT doesn’t have to figure out exactly how to present the fees. I promise you these fees will find their way into new websites and new travel agent displays in ways that we can not even envision today. That’s the magic of the free market system.
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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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This is question everyone seems to ask themselves every so often. It borders on those existential questions like, “Who am I?” or “Why and I here?” Right now, when it comes to changing the way that airline tickets are sold here in the United States, you can make a difference. Sign our petition to the Secretary of Transportation and let him know you would like to know airline fees up front so you can buy your airfare intelligently.
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The Consumer Travel Alliance strongly supports DOT’s rulemaking proposals regarding extension of tarmac-delay rules across the entire airline transportation spectrum. These additional regulations will make these tarmac rules apply across the entire air transportation network.
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