Chairman John Mica
Ranking Member Nick J. Rahall, II
Chairman Thomas E. Petri
Ranking Member Jerry F. Costello
Chairman Jay Rockefeller
Ranking Member Kay Bailey Hutchison
Chairman Maria Cantwell
Ranking Member John Thune
Dear FAA Reauthorization Conference Committee Members,
We the undersigned corporations and travel management companies (TMCs) understand that you have many important issues to resolve in reconciling competing FAA reauthorization bills. We hope you will give careful consideration to including language that will prevent the airlines from continuing to violate Section 41712 of the U.S. Federal Aviation Act. Specifically, we ask that you direct the U.S. 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.
Section 41712 of the Federal Aviation Act prohibits “unfair or deceptive” practices in the sale of air transportation by airlines and TMCs. In our opinion, the continuing failure of airlines to share information about their optional fees with TMCs violates that rule by making it impossible for us and other consumers to efficiently compare air transportation costs among competing providers.
For three and one-half years, despite our substantial collective purchasing power and our continuing calls for fee transparency, airlines have refused to provide TMCs with this vital information. 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. Additionally, since most airlines using TMCs prefer that consumers not be aware of the true cost of travel, failing to provide information on optional fees in appropriate electronic formats enables them to prevent the comparative price searches that are the basis for effective competition.
In today’s world, the marketplace winner is not the airline offering the best value, but the one that does the best job of concealing its true all-in prices. The airlines contend that static lists of their respective fees, available on their individual websites, represent adequate notification to customers. However, since there are hundreds of thousands of possible fare and fee combinations, routings and competitors for any given trip, it is completely impractical for any purchaser to use such static lists to construct side-by-side actual cost comparisons. The only way for consumers to know what a given trip is going to cost is to use the power of computers to construct, from among competitive alternatives, comparative actual travel costs. That can happen only if the airlines provide optional fee information in the same electronic, transactable formats used to provide fare information.
Satisfying our request will not impose insuperable burdens on the airline industry. The airlines have built a very low-cost transmission system for the dissemination of fees through the airline-owned Airline Tariff Publishing Company. Unfortunately, a dysfunctional marketplace has incentivized them to withhold, rather than provide, electronic information about the roughly $10 billion in optional fees they now collect annually.
A full disclosure requirement does not represent DOT “re-regulation,” as some airlines have asserted, but rather fundamental consumer protection under existing law. As a result of federal preemption, DOT is the sole consumer-protection agency for air travelers. The marketplace, state consumer protection laws and the Federal Trade Commission, which has no jurisdiction over airline disclosures, cannot resolve this problem.
We ask that you preserve competition in the airline industry by directing DOT to promptly require appropriate disclosure of airline optional fees.
Sincerely,
A & I Travel Service, Inc.
A Plus Travel Adventures
A&P Cruises and Tours
Action Travel
Advent Travel Leaders
Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission
Aker Business Services Inc.
All About Travel, Inc.
All Seasons Travel/American Express
American Residential Services LLC
American Society of Travel Agents
American Traffic Solutions
ANTHONY TRAVEL
ArthroCare Corporation
Artisans of Travel
Artisans of Travel
Association for Airline Passenger Rights
Association of Canadian Travel Agencies
BAC Travel Dept.
Balboa Travel Inc.
Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation
Bear Air International
BEC TravelCorporation/dba Willamette Intl. Travel
BizTravelSolutions, LLC
Blue Ribbon Business Travel International, Inc.
Boeing
Brown Brothers Harriman & Co.
Buon Viaggio Travel
Bursch Travel Agency, Inc.
Business Travel Coalition
BYU-Idaho/CWT
Caldwell Travel, Inc.
Cannon Design
CI Travel
Clean Seal, Inc.
Columbus McKinnon Corporation
Colwick Travel
Courtesy Travel
Cresta World Travel
CSC
DHL
Dollar Tree
Egencia, an Expedia Inc. Company
EILEENS TRAVEL, INC.
El Sol Travel inc.
Federal Mogul
FreemanWhite
Friendly Travel Inc.
GAF Materials Corporation
Gartner
Get-A-Way Travel
Gibraltar Industries, Inc.
Glen Travel Ltd
Global Travel
Goss International Corporation
Hampshire Group Limited
Harolds Travel
HealthCare California
Healthnow NY
Hidden Treasure Tours, Inc
Holcim (Australia)
Ingersoll Rand
J Walker Service Group LLC
Jade Travel
Journeys Unlimited Inc.
Just Marketing International
Keystone Foods LLC
Kraft Foods Global Inc.
Liberty Global Europe Ltd
LXR Travel
Manassas Travel/Travel Leaders
Maquet CV
Marcellus Institute
Mark IV, LLC
Mennonite Health Services Alliance
Merck KGaA
Meridia Audience Response
Metro Travel & Tours, Inc.
Metrohm USA, Inc.
Midwest ISO
MKI Travel and Conference Management Inc.
National Fire Protection Association
National Recreational Flyers
Nationwide Intelligence, Inc.
NCR Corporation
NetApp
New Era Cap
Niagara University
Orbitz
Ottawa Hills Travel - Travel Leaders
Palm Coast Imports
Plug Power Inc.
Provisur Technologies Inc.
Pyramid Travel of Wisconsin INc
Pyramid Travel of Wisconsin INc
Rawhide Travel and Tours, Incorporated of Arizona
Retrotech, Inc.
ROBERTA'S TRAVEL SOLUTIONS
Sabre Travel Network
San Diego Travel Group, Inc
Signature Destinations
SKF USA Inc.
Spears Travel / Travel Leaders
Stantec Consulting
Stepan Company
STERIS Corporation
Sterling Jewelers
Sun Chemical Corporation
Sybase, Inc.
Synacor, Inc.
Tangibility, Inc., d.b.a. Travelplanners
The Regence Group
The Remington Group Ltd
The Schwan Food Company
The Travel Company Edinburgh
Town & Country Travel
TRADYTEC
Travel Advisors International
Travel Leaders
TRAVEL LEADERS N.OLMSTED OHIO
Travel Leaders of Illinois
Travel Management Options
TRAVEL TIME TRAVEL AGENCY, INC.
Traveline Travel
Travelink, American Express
Travelocity
TravelStore, Inc.
Tunnell Consulting
UCB Pharma
University of Notre Dame
USTravel
Victaulic
Vista Travel Inc.
Westfield Group
Wood Travel
World Travel Inc.
WorldTravelService
COPY:
Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
DEMOCRATS
Inouye, Daniel K. (HI)
Kerry, John F. (MA)
Boxer, Barbara (CA)
Nelson, Bill (FL)
Lautenberg, Frank R. (NJ)
Pryor, Mark L. (AR)
McCaskill, Claire (MO)
Klobuchar, Amy (MN)
Udall, Tom (NM)
Warner, Mark R. (VA)
Begich, Mark (AK)
REPUBLICANS
Snowe, Olympia J. (ME)
DeMint, Jim (SC)
Wicker, Roger F. (MS)
Isakson, Johnny (GA)
Blunt, Roy (MO)
Boozman, John (AR)
Toomey, Patrick J. (PA)
Rubio, Marco (FL)
Ayotte, Kelly (NH)
Heller, Dean (NV)
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
REPUBLICANS
Don Young (AK)
Howard Coble (NC)
John J. Duncan, Jr. (TN)
Frank A. LoBiondo (NJ)
Gary Miller (CA)
Timothy V. Johnson (IL)
Sam Graves (MO)
Bill Shuster (PA)
Shelley Moore Capito (WV)
Jean Schmidt (OH)
Candice Miller (MI)
Duncan Hunter (CA)
Andy Harris (MD)
Rick Crawford (AR)
Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA)
Frank Guinta (NH)
Randy Hultgren (IL)
Lou Barletta (PA)
Chip Cravaack (MN)
Blake Farenthold (TX)
Larry Bucshon (IN)
Billy Long (MO)
Bob Gibbs (OH)
Patrick Meehan (PA)
Richard Hanna (NY)
Jeff Landry (LA)
Steve Southerland (FL)
Jeff Denham (CA)
James Lankford (OK)
Reid Ribble (WI)
Chuck Fleischmann (TN)
DEMOCRATS
Peter A. DeFazio (OR)
Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC)
Jerrold Nadler (NY)
Corrine Brown (FL)
Bob Filner (CA)
Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX)
Elijah E. Cummings (MD)
Leonard Boswell (IA)
Tim Holden (PA)
Rick Larsen (WA)
Michael E. Capuano (MA)
Timothy H. Bishop (NY)
Michael H. Michaud (ME)
Russ Carnahan (MO)
Grace Napolitano (CA)
Daniel Lipinski (IL)
Mazie Hirono (HI)
Jason Altmire (PA)
Timothy J. Walz (MN)
Heath Shuler (NC)
Steve Cohen (TN)
Laura A. Richardson (CA)
Albio Sires (NJ)
Donna F. Edwards (MD