DOT Proposes Eliminating Airline Truth in Advertising Rules

Let's say you're boppin' down the highway when you see a sign advertising gasoline for 57 cents a gallon. Your heart thumps madly at your good fortune and you pull off, wait in line for 45 minutes, then nudge your SUV up to the pump--only to notice a sign taped to the hose which reads, "Advertised price does not include $1 hose usage charge, $0.78 overhead rain barrier charge, or $0.28 mandatory bathroom cleaning charge."

Wouldn't you be hopping mad? I would.

Well, that's what some airlines want to do with their pricing--and if you don't let them know you're hopping mad, the US Department of Transportation just might let them get away with adding arbitrary fees and surcharges to their airfares and then hiding those fees from their advertised prices. Intrigued?

I first learned of this DOT stealth action through an article appearing in the Sunday travel section of the San Francisco Chronicle written by Ed Perkins, called Proposal could ease rules requiring disclosure of true cost of airfares.

It's a good article about the proposed changes. Problem is, Ed gives you the wrong URL to log your comments on the proposal. Since your comments may be crucial, below are some resources to ponder and act upon.

At this moment, the US DOT (Department of Transportation) allows airlines a couple of fraudulent advertising practices. Airlines may advertise prices of one-way tickets that don't actually exist (listing half the actual price and then adding in small print, "each way based on round-trip purchase"), and the DOT looks the other way when airlines exclude from advertised prices any government imposed taxes and fees.

One of the new proposals favored by some airlines would eliminate truth-in-advertising rules entirely, so airlines could add "fees" and "surcharges" at will, without telling you about them until after you've made the decision to buy.

Here are the four proposals:

1. Maintain the current practice either with or without codifying all of its elements in the rule;
2. end the exception for government-imposed charges and enforce the rule as written;
3. revise the rule to eliminate most or all requirements for airfare advertisements but to require that consumers be apprised of the total purchase price before the purchase is made;
4. or eliminate the full-fare advertising rule in its entirety.

The free market choice is, of course, number two. A consumer should be fully informed of the final price before reaching for that credit card, and without having to spend hours finding out that a particular advertised price is bogus. It is imperative in a free market that consumers be able to easily compare the market choices before making a final, informed buying decision.

The DOT has asked your opinion on these proposals. If you don't like the idea of hidden charges (or even if you do) you may wish make your opinions known to the DOT through a fairly convenient online comment procedure.

Edward Hasbrouck has a detailed explanation of this procedure on his Practical Nomad Blog. I followed them and was able to make an online comment on the proposed rule changes (read it in text format here). At the time of writing, 562 submissions have been made, an overwhelming number of them in support of proposal 2, enforcing the rules as written.

You may enter comments anonymously. Although the comment period ended in February, the story is just surfacing in the press and evidently the DOT is still accepting comments.

Here is the Document Abstract for Document OST-2005-23194-1 | Document and Comments through March 10.