BTC Press List

Spirit Airlines Ad Demonstrates Need for Regulation

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:16:00 GMT

Open Allies for Airfare Transparency
Contact: Art Sackler
202-365-0222 / asackler@sacklerpolicyservices.com

Spirit Airlines Ad Demonstrates Need for Regulation

Open Allies Supports Criticism from Senator Barbara Boxer

Washington, DC, January 30, 2012 - Last week’s effort by Spirit Airlines to claim that new U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) rules require airlines to “hide” taxes in advertising airfares not only is misleading, but demonstrates exactly why air travelers need the kind of disclosure DOT is requiring. Open Allies for Airfare Transparency agrees with the sharp criticism leveled against Spirit by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) that it distorts the truth, and that “being able to compare the full price [of airfare] before purchase is both necessary and fair.” That full price is the base fare+taxes+fees for baggage, seating, boarding and more.

“Left to their own devices, airlines will not disclose fees,” Open Allies Executive Director Art Sackler said, “because the financial incentives for them are to hide that information. Spirit’s ad reveals that mindset and makes crystal clear why the government has to step in: if airlines will fight against disclosure of taxes, they will fight even harder to resist disclosing their fees to consumers. Congress has an opportunity in the next few weeks to underscore that direction to DOT through the FAA Reauthorization legislation, and we urge them to do so.”

In requiring improved disclosure of taxes and baggage fees this month, DOT has taken important steps toward true transparency for consumers. But more needs to be done, and Open Allies looks forward to the additional rulemaking on fee disclosure to be conducted by DOT later this year. That rulemaking should address full transparency and transactability of all airline fees through every distribution channel in which an airline participates. That would ensure meaningful comparison shopping across airlines on the “all-in” price of a ticket at any point of sale used by consumers.

With 50% or more of all airline tickets purchased via traditional travel agents or online travel sites, full disclosure of up-to-the-minute fee information is imperative. The nearly 400 members of Open Allies believe the traveling public is entitled to buy airline tickets, including fees for baggage or other services they select, based on clear, complete and simple-to-understand information.

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Open Allies for Airfare Transparency is a coalition of individuals, companies, and organizations that believes that all airline fares and fees should be transparent to the traveling public. Our members include more than 380 of the world’s leading travel management companies, corporate travel departments, consumer groups, and travel agencies. www.faretransparency.org

www.faretransparency.org

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Travel Industry Urges Congress To Stop Airlines From Violating Federal Aviation Act

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:48:00 GMT

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

Travel Industry Urges Congress To Stop Airlines From Violating Federal Aviation Act

Respected Airline Industry Pioneer Weighs In

January 29, 2012, RADNOR, PA - Business Travel Coalition (BTC) today transmitted a letter signed by some 150 organizations to Congressional conference committee members negotiating a long-term reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Signatories urged conferees to include language that will prevent some airlines from continuing to violate Section 41712 of the U.S. Federal Aviation Act. (The signatory letter can be downloaded here.)

Specifically, these industry-leading organizations ask that Congress direct the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to within 180 days require airlines to disclose optional fee information (e.g., checked baggage charges, at-airport ticketing fees, etc.) in the same electronic and transactable formats used to publish airfares themselves.

Signatories to the letter expressed to conferees that Section 41712 prohibits “unfair or deceptive” practices in the sale of air transportation by airlines and ticket agents. The continuing failure of airlines to share information about their optional fees with ticket agents violates Section 41712 by making it impossible for consumers to efficiently compare air transportation costs among competing providers.

New consumer-protection rules introduced by DOT last week require airlines to disclose on their websites if there will be additional baggage fees and where consumers can go to find them. This is a positive step but the rule does little to facilitate comparison-shopping, and applies to just one of many optional fees. Consumers continue to pay supra premium prices -- billions of dollars in fees -- for optional services because the inability to efficiently compare the total cost of air travel (base airfares and fees) on an apples-to-apples basis across multiple airlines guarantees that these prices go undisciplined by the marketplace. This greatly frustrates individual consumers as well as major corporations that purchase millions of dollars in air transportation services.

Robert Crandall, retired Chairman of American Airlines, thinks the airlines will serve both themselves and consumers by offering comprehensive information to customers. “As we all know,” Mr. Crandall said, “consumers do not hold the airline industry in high regard, despite the extraordinary job the airlines have done of providing the public with safe and affordably priced transportation services. I don’t know why the airlines seem so opposed to disclosing information on the websites consumers use, since consumers will find out the real cost of travel when they actually fly, and I should think that taking away a source of aggravation for their customers would be high on the industry’s self help list. Why make your customers angry when you have nothing to gain?”

BTC believes that given the rapidly expanding list of optional services, airlines should indeed want to benefit from accelerated consumer acceptance of optional fees and sales revenues possible only through traditional brick-and-mortar and online travel agency points-of-sale as well as through corporate online booking tools utilized by millions of business travelers. However, for three and one-half years, despite the substantial purchasing power of major corporations, and their continuing calls for fee transparency, airlines have refused to provide optional fee information.

BTC Chairman Kevin Mitchell stated, “Unfortunately, normal competitive forces will not alleviate this problem. If one airline were to include comprehensive information on optional fees, that carrier would be disadvantaged because the cost of transportation on that carrier would appear – to the unaware consumer – to be higher than the cost of travel on its competitors. The federal government can uniquely solve this problem for airlines unable to act independently and for consumers being financially harmed.”

Unlike nearly all other industries, consumers have no legal rights under state laws to seek redress for unfair and deceptive treatment because of federal preemption -- a doctrine airlines created and fight hammer-and-tongs to defend and expand. What’s more, under Section 41712 consumers do not have a right to sue for bad service. DOT, empowered by Congress, is the sole guarantor of consumer-protection for air travelers. Congress should direct DOT to require this optional fee information of airlines within 180 days of FAA reauthorization.

Conference committee members include House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-FL), Ranking Member Nick J. Rahall, II (D-WV), Aviation Subcommittee Chairman Thomas E. Petri (R-WI), Ranking Member Jerry F. Costello (D-IL) as well as Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security Chairman Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Ranking Member John Thune (R-SD).

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About BTC
Founded in 1994, the mission of the Business Travel Coalition is to interpret industry and government policies and practices so that the managed travel community can influence issues of strategic importance to their organizations.

Contact BTC
Kevin Mitchell 610-999-9247; Mitchell@BusinessTravelCoalition.com

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Senator Boxer Calls Out Spirit Airlines For Trying To Mislead Public About Airfares

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:43:00 GMT

Dear Mr. Baldanza:

I write to you today regarding my concern with Spirit Airlines' deliberate attempt to deceive the flying public about a new Department of Transportation (DOT) rule that will improve the transparency of airfares for consumers.
I have been shocked by the failure of your airline to tell the truth in an email sent to your customers earlier this week as well as warnings posted on Spirit.com that read, "New government regulations require us to HIDE taxes in your fares." Nothing could be further from the truth.

What the rule says is that you have to tell your customers the full cost of a ticket. It prohibits Spirit or any other airline from advertising fares "that exclude taxes, fees or other charges since the major impact of such presentations is to confuse and deceive consumers."

And despite Spirit's claim that the airline must now hide relevant information, the rule "allows carriers to advise the public in their fare solicitations about government taxes and fees..."

Today's consumers are faced with many options when planning air travel and being able to compare the full price before purchase is both necessary and fair. Your recent statement that "the better form of transparency is to break out costs so that consumers know exactly what they are buying" is exactly what this new DOT rule will help do.

I urge you to immediately send a clarifying email to your customers and remove the misleading information from your website.

Thank you for your attention on this important consumer issue.
Sincerely,
Barbara Boxer

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BTC STATEMENT FOLLOWS

January 25 - Spirit Airlines Misleads Customers

January 25, 2012, RADNOR, PA - Business Travel Coalition (BTC) today denounced Spirit Airlines for lying to its customers and the flying public regarding a new U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) consumer protection rule that went into effect this week. Using over-the-top fear tactics, the airline warned consumers that: �Spirit must now HIDE the government's taxes and fees in your fares.� This statement is a disgraceful lie; period, full stop.

Airlines must prominently display the total fare, including mandatory fees and taxes (but not optional services fees, e.g., for checked bags). However, the plain truth is that airlines are allowed to break out these tax items on their websites and in print advertising in as much detail as they care to so long as the breakout is not more prominent than the total price � to avoid misleading consumers. For Spirit Airlines to state otherwise and to endeavor to launch a grassroots campaign based on a false and deceptive statement is unethical in the extreme, and inexcusable. (Note: See evidence of deception appended to the bottom of this statement.)

The purpose of the new DOT rule is to ensure consumers are not misled regarding the total price of an air ticket purchase in a radically changed airline marketplace. Since 2008, many airlines have aggressively unbundled services that were previously included in the price of an airline ticket, such as checked baggage. It has become exceedingly more difficult in recent years for consumers to determine the total price of air transportation. This new DOT rule represents a strong step in the right direction even as there is significantly more consumer-protection work in air transportation to be accomplished.

�With this ill-considered attack on DOT, Spirit Airlines has reached a new low and no doubt secured the Poster-Child crown for 2012 for misleading consumers. It is this kind of reckless anti-consumer behavior, designed to confuse consumers in this new unbundled, optional fee environment - where fees are hidden and base fares are distorted - that has drawn regulatory interventions from Washington and Brussels,� stated BTC Chairman Kevin Mitchell. �Regulators understand that there is great profit in consumer confusion and have justifiably interceded. Additional consumer-protection work needs to be accomplished with a sense of urgency.�

BTC strongly supports the third consumer-protection Notice of Proposed Rulemaking scheduled for publication in August 2012 that will address the availability of unbundled optional services (e.g., checked bags) and associated fees to agency and corporate sales channels, thereby facilitating efficient comparison-shopping for consumers. Airline customers continue to pay supra premium prices -- billions of dollars in fees -- for optional services because the inability to efficiently compare the total cost of air travel (base airfares and optional services fees) on an apples-to-apples basis across multiple airlines guarantees that these prices go undisciplined by the marketplace.

�Given the order of magnitude of ongoing consumer harm, BTC urges DOT Secretary Ray LaHood to take steps to expedite the rulemaking process within the Department and to seek to reduce the White House Office of Management and Budget review time,� added Mitchell. �The U.S. Congress should also direct DOT, through FAA reauthorization legislation, to require airlines to promptly provide optional services and fee data in an electronic and transactable format to all channels where individual airlines offer their base airfares for sale.�

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NOTE: TACIT EVIDENCE OF SPIRIT�S DECEPTION

See page 22, question 3. http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/rules/EAPP_2_FAQ_01-11-2012final.pdf.

DOT advised the airlines that �the Department decided to include a provision permitting a seller of air transportation to break-out these charges while still displaying the total price to be paid by the consumer. A separate statement of these taxes and fees, however, must not be false or misleading, must be provided on a per-passenger basis and must accurately reflect the cost of the charge to the carrier, and may not be displayed prominently. The purpose of the rule is to ensure consumers are not misled regarding the total cost of the purchase.�

DOT even provided the airlines with slides to illustrate how to display taxes and fees. See slides 31 and 32.http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/rules/April2011Amendments_003.ppt

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Open Allies' Response To Spirit Airlines' Anti-DOT Campaign

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:18:00 GMT

Open Allies for Airfare Transparency
Contact: Art Sackler
202-365-0222 / asackler@sacklerpolicyservices.com

Washington, DC, January 25, 2012 - Open Allies for Airfare Transparency Executive Director Art Sackler had the following response to the Spirit Airlines ad that mischaracterizes the rule requiring baggage fee transparency placed into effect by the U.S. Department of Transportation yesterday:

�Spirit Airlines and this seat-of-the-pants grassroots advertising campaign distorts the spirit of one of the most important actions to protect consumers undertaken by the Department of Transportation. This misleading ad campaign only underscores the need for DOT�s initiatives to protect consumers by requiring full disclosure and enabling consumers to compare complete prices across competing airlines.�

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Open Allies for Airfare Transparency is a coalition of individuals, companies, and organizations that believes that all airline fares and fees should be transparent to the traveling public. Our members include more than 380 of the world�s leading travel management companies, corporate travel departments, consumer groups, and travel agencies. www.faretransparency.org

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Spirit Airlines Misleads Its Customers

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:25:00 GMT

PRESS STATEMENT

For Immediate Release

SPIRIT AIRLINES MISLEADS ITS CUSTOMERS

Secures Poster-Child Crown

January 25, 2012, RADNOR, PA - Business Travel Coalition (BTC) today denounced Spirit Airlines for lying to its customers and the flying public regarding a new U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) consumer protection rule that went into effect this week. Using over-the-top fear tactics, the airline warned consumers that: “Spirit must now HIDE the government's taxes and fees in your fares.” This statement is a disgraceful lie; period, full stop.

Airlines must prominently display the total fare, including mandatory fees and taxes (but not optional services fees, e.g., for checked bags). However, the plain truth is that airlines are allowed to break out these tax items on their websites and in print advertising in as much detail as they care to so long as the breakout is not more prominent than the total price – to avoid misleading consumers. For Spirit Airlines to state otherwise and to endeavor to launch a grassroots campaign based on a false and deceptive statement is unethical in the extreme, and inexcusable.

The purpose of the new DOT rule is to ensure consumers are not misled regarding the total price of an air ticket purchase in a radically changed airline marketplace. Since 2008, many airlines have aggressively unbundled services that were previously included in the price of an airline ticket, such as checked baggage. It has become exceedingly more difficult in recent years for consumers to determine the total price of air transportation. This new DOT rule represents a strong step in the right direction even as there is significantly more consumer-protection work in air transportation to be accomplished.

“With this ill-considered attack on DOT, Spirit Airlines has reached a new low and no doubt secured the Poster-Child crown for 2012 for misleading consumers. It is this kind of reckless anti-consumer behavior, designed to confuse consumers in this new unbundled, optional fee environment - where fees are hidden and base fares are distorted - that has drawn regulatory interventions from Washington and Brussels,” stated BTC Chairman Kevin Mitchell. “Regulators understand that there is great profit in consumer confusion and have justifiably interceded. Additional consumer-protection work needs to be accomplished with a sense of urgency.”

BTC strongly supports the third consumer-protection Notice of Proposed Rulemaking scheduled for publication in August 2012 that will address the availability of unbundled optional services (e.g., checked bags) and associated fees to agency and corporate sales channels, thereby facilitating efficient comparison-shopping for consumers. Airline customers continue to pay supra premium prices -- billions of dollars in fees -- for optional services because the inability to efficiently compare the total cost of air travel (base airfares and optional services fees) on an apples-to-apples basis across multiple airlines guarantees that these prices go undisciplined by the marketplace.

“Given the order of magnitude of ongoing consumer harm, BTC urges DOT Secretary Ray LaHood to take steps to expedite the rulemaking process within the Department and to seek to reduce the White House Office of Management and Budget review time,” added Mitchell. “The U.S. Congress should also direct DOT, through FAA reauthorization legislation, to require airlines to promptly provide optional services and fee data in an electronic and transactable format to all channels where individual airlines offer their base airfares for sale.”

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About Business Travel Coalition
Founded in 1994, the mission of the Business Travel Coalition is to interpret industry and government policies and practices so that the managed travel community can influence issues of strategic importance to their organizations.

Contact BTC
Kevin Mitchell 610-999-9247; Mitchell@BusinessTravelCoalition.com

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Open Allies Applauds Bag Fee Disclosures Required Today

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:46:00 GMT

Open Allies Applauds Bag Fee Disclosures Required Today

Urges DOT to Move Swiftly on Transparency of All Airline Fees

Washington, DC, January 24, 2012 -- Open Allies for Airfare Transparency praised the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for adopting a rule requiring improved disclosure of baggage fees that takes effect today. However, the group noted much more work needs to be done quickly to provide full disclosure of baggage and other major fees, such as for seating and boarding, before purchase, to enable meaningful comparison shopping across airlines of the �all-in� (fare+fees+taxes) price of a ticket. DOT has announced plans for a supplementary rulemaking to address full disclosure of these fees through all distribution channels airlines choose to use, but recently delayed that rulemaking, with the result that consumers likely will not see full disclosure until 2013.

�DOT deserves great credit for once again delivering on promises to consumers today,� said Art Sackler, Open Allies for Airfare Transparency Executive Director, �but as DOT itself has acknowledged, today�s change doesn�t go far enough. Open Allies agrees, and underscores the urgency of swiftly taking the decisive steps to assure consumers access to all optional fees at every point of sale. Otherwise, consumers face another year, or longer, of confusion and complexity, with no meaningful way to compare offerings across airlines to secure the best deal on the all-in price of air travel.�

Airlines have disaggregated, or �unbundled,� fees for many services, including baggage, seating and boarding. Details on those fees are not published and updated continuously like the cost of the base airfare. DOT has taken an important step in providing some resolution for consumers on the question for baggage, but these fees, and more than a hundred others, remain functionally �hidden� because they are unavailable for all-in price comparisons across airlines prior to the time of purchase.

With 50% or more of all airline tickets purchased via traditional travel agents or online travel sites, it is imperative that up-to-the-minute and transactable fee information be provided through every distribution channel in which an airline chooses to sell, so that businesses and consumers can fully compare prices and purchase at points of sale of their choosing.

The nearly 400 members of Open Allies believe the traveling public is entitled to buy airline tickets, including fees for all services they select, based on clear, complete and simple-to-understand-and-compare information.

###

Open Allies for Airfare Transparency is a coalition of individuals, companies, and organizations that believes that all airline fares and fees should be transparent to the traveling public. Our members include more than 380 of the world�s leading travel management companies, corporate travel departments, consumer groups, and travel agencies.

Open Allies for Airfare Transparency
Contact: Art Sackler
202-365-0222 / asackler@sacklerpolicyservices.com
www.faretransparency.org

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BTC Comment: Technology To Boost Business Travel

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:17:00 GMT

Comment: Technology To Boost Business Travel
Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the US-based Business Travel Coalition, expounds on the communications-technology value proposition...

The 17 January 2012 Air & Business Travel News Feature "Business travel is not under 'significant threat' - Amadeus," is an excellently written piece based on a well-researched report. There are additional historical and technology-use considerations to add to the analysis when viewing the long-term impacts of new communications technologies on business travel activities.

When the telegraph lines were laid along side the rail tracks the pundits of the day predicted the demise of business travel by rail. However, business travel by rail increased with a head of steam never seen before. Similarly, connected networks of long-distance telephone service providers were to be the end of jet travel. Instead, jet travel took off well beyond all expectations. It would appear that when new communications technologies emerge and meet up with existing transportation services there can be a boom in commercial activities and business travel demand.

Video conferencing, and in more recent years telepresencing, has become better, cheaper and ubiquitous, tremendously increasing its network value. For some 20 years this technology has helped reduce some kinds of business travel. However, there are two fundamental realities that will likely continue to drive business travel demand, in BTC’s view.

First, as the world’s population grows, and economies modernize, there will be an absolute increase in commercial activity and the corresponding number of potential business travelers. Second, beginning with email decades ago, and various forms social media more recently (e.g., LinkedIn), business people now maintain orders-of-magnitude more relationships, which eventually leads to a relative increase in the need to meet face to face.

Another important consideration is how new technologies can increase individual productivity and organizational effectiveness. Two examples illustrate this point.

Example 1. A healthcare provider’s corporate customer in Madrid is unhappy with service provided to its employees. The London-based healthcare company in the past would have dispatched a team of managers to assess the situation, fix the problems and endeavor to make the customer happy. Today, communications technologies can help initially diagnose the problems. Then a smaller team can fly to Madrid to meet with the customer. Finally, the healthcare provider’s business unit president can videoconference in to a Madrid meeting where her managers are participating and make the service-improvement commitments necessary to satisfy the customer’s senior leaders and keep the business.

Example 2. The green lights of an economic rebound are on the horizon. One automobile manufacturer dispatches its sales people every Sunday night to prevent competitors from enjoying an advantage of face time with prospective customers. A competing auto company organizes its sales activities differently. Sales teams do company and product updates and new product introductions using webinars and video telepresencing during the first half of the month. These sales executives maintain existing relationships online and pre qualify prospects so that when they do travel during the second half of the month their sales production is optimized. Importantly, they get to spend some Sundays with their families. This approach can remove cost, speed the sales cycle and increase the top line.

A strong argument can be made that today’s new and emerging technologies are far and away more robust on a relative basis that any historical communications-technology innovations. There are countless ways these new tools can help businesses reduce costs, increase profitability and improve travelers’ lives without negatively impacting business travel demand and the global travel industry infrastructure that supports it.

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About BTC
Founded in 1994, the mission of the Business Travel Coalition is to interpret industry and government policies and practices so that the managed travel community can influence issues of strategic importance to their organizations.

Contact BTC
Kevin Mitchell 610-999-9247; Mitchell@BusinessTravelCoalition.com

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Delay in Airline Fee Rules: What it Means

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:12:00 GMT

Open Allies for Airfare Transparency
Contact: Art Sackler
202-365-0222 /asackler@sacklerpolicyservices.com

DELAY IN AIRLINE FEE RULES: WHAT IT MEANS

Consumers Will Have to Wait Until 2013 to Compare Airfares that Include Fees

Washington, DC, January 9, 2012 - Air travelers will have to scrutinize their purchases and watch their wallets for at least another year. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) has further deferred its consumer rulemaking III, with significant consequences for consumers who want to know the full cost of their airline tickets, including fees for baggage, seating, boarding and more, and be able to compare them with other airlines, before purchase. The issuance of a proposed rule is targeted for next August 27, with 60 days allotted for public comment. A final rule almost surely will not be put into effect until significantly into 2013.

DoT�s delay has been caused by a requirement to do a cost/benefits analysis of its proposal, and the need to competitively bid out the contract for the analysis. �Although unavoidable, that delay is a real problem for air travelers,� said Art Sackler, Open Allies for Airfare Transparency Executive Director. �It means another year or more of confusion, complexity and no meaningful way to compare across airlines and find the best deal on an all-in price. We encourage DoT to take every step it can to shorten the projected time frame for these new rules.�

In its consumer rulemaking II, released in April of last year, DoT addressed the question of �hidden� fees for all of the services airlines have disaggregated, or �unbundled,� and are charging for separately, by requiring those airlines to publish the fees on their websites and update them at least every 90 days. DoT also announced then that it would conduct a third rulemaking to address the manner in which fee information should be distributed and communicated to travelers, whether business or leisure.

With 50% or more of all airline tickets purchased via traditional travel agents or online travel sites, it is imperative that up-to-the-minute, transactable, fee information be provided through every distribution channel an airline chooses to use, so that businesses and consumers can fully compare prices and purchase at any point of sale.

The nearly 400 members of Open Allies believe the traveling public is entitled to buy airline tickets, including fees for baggage or other services they select, based on clear, complete and simple-to-understand information. We look forward to continuing to provide our views to DoT in the interest of helping to shape just that outcome for consumers.

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Open Allies for Airfare Transparency is a coalition of individuals, companies, and organizations that believes that all airline fares and fees should be transparent to the traveling public. Our members include more than 380 of the world�s leading travel management companies, corporate travel departments, consumer groups, and travel agencies. www.faretransparency.org

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Positive Legacy of Airline Deregulation at Risk

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 22:03:00 GMT

PRESS STATEMENT

For Immediate Release

POSITIVE LEGACY OF U.S. AIRLINE INDUSTRY DEREGULATION AT RISK

Protracted Delay in Restoring Comparison Shopping of Air Travel Offerings Financially Harms Consumers

January 8, 2012, RADNOR, PA - Business Travel Coalition (BTC) today responded with pronounced concern to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) recent rulemaking calendar, which delays by four months the publication of an airline consumer-protection Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). This NPRM, now scheduled for publication on August 10, 2012, will address the availability of unbundled optional services (e.g., checked bags) and associated fees to agency and corporate sales channels, thereby facilitating efficient comparison-shopping for consumers.

With a variety of public comment, as well as DOT and White House review periods, absent a concerted DOT effort to expedite this rulemaking proceeding, it could be deep into 2013 before a final rule could be published. That assumes the process proceeds without further interruption or delay.

Regrettably, consumers will now continue to pay supra premium prices -- billions of dollars in fees -- for optional services because the inability to efficiently compare the total cost of air travel (base airfares and fees) on an apples-to-apples basis across multiple airlines guarantees that these prices will go undisciplined by the marketplace. In an economy with millions upon millions of families unable to pay their basic bills, this protracted financial exploitation by some airlines amounts to nothing less than a national disgrace.

“The disciplining of airline pricing by consumers -- enabled by highly efficient processes for comparison-shopping of air travel options -- represents the single most important achievement of U.S. airline industry deregulation,” said BTC Chairman Kevin Mitchell. “Complete, accurate and unbiased presentations of air travel pricing -- often made possible by DOT interventions -- has for more than three decades intensified competition and democratized air travel for families for whom air travel had been financially out of reach, and only the province of the affluent.”

Ancillary fees are presently hidden as consumers are blocked from evaluating optional services and fees in electronic side-by-side comparisons of all-in prices. Airlines refuse to provide ancillary fee data because there is apparently great profit in consumer confusion and undisciplined ancillary fees. What’s more, since 2008 -- when unbundling greatly accelerated -- even comparing base airfares has largely become a pointless exercise. Today, base airfares are distorted, as some airfares are all-inclusive while others are unbundled to varying and sometimes bewildering degrees with all manner of confusing ancillary fee schedules.

Because of November 2012 national elections, a four-month postponement of this NPRM unmistakably places the entire rulemaking process at risk of further delay or failure. A potentially new DOT Secretary in 2013 might choose, for example, to place a review-freeze on all pending rulemakings or to delay implementation of finalized rules. This would provide an opportunity for those airlines opposed to better consumer disclosure to pursue a well-financed, fresh-kill strategy aimed at permanently avoiding full ancillary fee disclosure at the expense of consumers.

“BTC emphasizes that airlines currently have the wherewithal to eliminate prolonged consumer financial harm from hidden fees. At minimal cost, airlines could immediately provide ancillary fee data to consumers through an already developed, fully tested and ready-to-go Airline Tariff Publishing Company (ATPCO) process. However, airlines to date refuse to do so, making the rulemaking essential,” added Mitchell.

Given the order-of magnitude of consumer harm, delay in the NPRM process and recalcitrance of airlines, BTC has three recommendations:

First, DOT Secretary Ray LaHood should immediately take steps to expedite the rulemaking process within the Department and also seek to reduce the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review time.

Second, the U.S. Congress should direct DOT, through FAA reauthorization legislation, to require airlines to promptly provide optional services and ancillary fee data in an electronic and transactable format to all channels where individual airlines offer their base airfares for sale.

Third, travel managers at multinational corporations with substantial business travel activities in the U.S and the travel management companies that serve them should insist that their respective industry associations strongly represent their interests in this debate in London, Brussels, Washington and other important capitals.

###

About BTC
Founded in 1994, the mission of the Business Travel Coalition is to interpret industry and government policies and practices so that the managed travel community can influence issues of strategic importance to their organizations.

Contact BTC
Kevin Mitchell 610-999-9247; Mitchell@BusinessTravelCoalition.com

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BTC: A Grim Outlook For UK Travel & Tourism Industry

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:28:00 GMT

A Grim Outlook For UK Travel & Tourism Industry

7 December 2011

By Kevin Mitchell

This decision this week to raise the Air Passenger Duty (APD) nearly 10 percent, and the admission that it is primarily for general revenue purposes, represents reckless governance in the extreme and is only made worse by the wholesale rejection of the travel industry�s well-considered concerns. The immediate consequence will be lost jobs; the longer-term fate of a substantially weakened UK travel and tourism industry as well as its global competitiveness is sealed.

Earlier this year, Business Travel Coalition organized some 70 corporate travel departments, travel management companies and tour operators from around the world and transmitted a letter to Rt Hon. George Osborne MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Rt Hon Michael Moore MP, Secretary of State for Scotland, urging a reduction in the APD. The duty had already become a burden on the competitiveness of the UK for meetings, incentive trips, conventions and tourism.

Signatories to this letter included Makino, Inc., from Japan, Dnata Travel Services from Dubai, Argo Travel from Greece, Qiagen Group, from The Netherlands, Alfa Laval from Sweden, Travel Leaders from the U.S., Li & Fung Group from Hong Kong and UNIGLOBE Normark Travel Inc. from Canada.

National economies have become more interlinked and these signatories are all negatively impacted by the onerous APD whether by reduced tourism to their countries or by the UK increasingly pricing itself out of the markets for meetings, incentive trips and conventions. They are indeed stakeholders in UK tax policy.

When the EU Emissions Trading System kicks in during 2012 - effectively taxing the UK twice for its role in �protecting the environment,� � the cumulative, negative impact on the UK and its external stakeholders will be orders of magnitude more grim.

�

About Business Travel Coalition
Founded in 1994, the mission of the Business Travel Coalition is to bring transparency to industry and government policies and practices so that the managed travel community can influence issues of strategic importance to their organizations.

Kevin Mitchell
610.999.9247
Mitchell@BusinessTravelCoalition.com

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Airline Passenger Protection: A Bumpy Ride Ahead? - FREE WebEx Presentation -

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:12:00 GMT

PRESS ALERT

Airline Passenger Protection: A Bumpy Ride Ahead?

SUMMARY
Please join us in person or online for a lively roundtable discussion on implications of sweeping new passenger protection rules impacting foreign and domestic carriers, travel agents and passengers. This free event is sponsored by Pillsbury, the American Bar Association Forum On Air & Space Law and the International Aviation Club.

WHEN
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Program: 3:00pp till 4:30pm (ET)
Cocktail Reception: 4:30pm till 6:30pm

WHERE
Option 1
Online via a WebEx Presentation

Option 2
In person at Pillsbury's Washington, DC Office
2300 N St. NW
Washington, DC 20037

PROGRAM
Topics will include:

- Are new, extended tarmac delay rules helping or hurting?

- Growing ancillary fees for services: deceptive sticker shock for consumers who need greater transparency to price compare, or legitimate attempts to earn adequate return on capital and payment for services rendered?

- Applying DOT consumer protection rules to foreign airlines�extraterritoriality stretched thin?

- Forcing travel agents to disclose carriers they don�t sell, incentive payments, and preferential displays�who represents consumers?

- Lost bags and lost tempers

WHO
Moderator
Kenneth P. Quinn, Partner, Pillsbury

Panelists
The Honorable Robert S. Rivkin, General Counsel
U.S. Department of Transportation

James G. Hnat, Executive Vice President and General Counsel
jetBlue Airways

Kevin Mitchell, Chairman
Business Travel Coalition

Gary Doernhoefer, General Counsel
International Air Transport Association

HOW TO REGISTER
To register for this event, please contact Liliam Aguila at 202.663.8336, or liliam.aguila@pillsburylaw.com. Please RSVP by November 28, 2011. Space is limited for this complimentary presentation. Online attendees will be provided with dial-in and WebEx information after registration.

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About Business Travel Coalition
Founded in 1994, the mission of the Business Travel Coalition is to bring transparency to industry and government policies and practices so that the managed travel community can influence issues of strategic importance to their organizations.

Contact:
Kevin Mitchell
610-999-9247

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