J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
A Republic Airways jet takes off from Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, February 23, 2012. The Capitol is seen across the Potomac River.
Earlier this year, President Biden spent a portion of his State of the Union address on junk fees, referring to the hidden costs added on to travel, entertainment, delivery services, and more. That messaging alone was enough to push some companies into disclosing their full prices before customers check out on platforms like Ticketmaster and Airbnb.
Instead of following suit, the airline industry is taking the opposite approach, using must-pass legislation to unravel air travel price transparency laws that have been on the books for the last decade.
By the end of September, Congress will need to pass a bill extending the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) funding and authorities for the next five years. Without a reauthorization bill, air traffic controllers stop working, and consequently everybody stops flying. Because lawmakers, industry, and consumer advocates know some form of reauthorization will pass, the bill often becomes a vehicle for stakeholders to slip in provisions that could not pass as stand-alone legislation.
Right now, the House version of the bill is more than 700 pages, while the Senate’s is more than 450 pages.
“We’re throwing consumers to the wolves with the airlines,” William McGee, an aviation and travel expert from the American Economic Liberties Project, told the Prospect, referring to language under Section 701 in the House version. This section, entitled “Advertisements and Solicitations for Passenger Air Transportation,” designates the “base airfare” price as the standard that airlines are required to disclose to consumers. That base airfare does not include required government taxes and other fees. Instead, the bill’s current language says airlines can provide information about other required, inescapable costs “through a link or pop-up.”
This would roll back a standard going back to the Obama administration, whereby the full price, including the cost of government taxes/fees and carrier surcharges, had to be shown as one total price on websites and other forms of advertising. Taxes and fees can add up to nearly 40 percent of a ticket’s cost in some cases. Consumers would have to be savvy enough to know to click a link to find the full total they would have to pay.
McGee said that what’s being proposed would be the equivalent of gas stations decoupling taxes and fees from the total listed at the gas pump. Imagine filling up your tank and the total listed on the pump comes to $56, but when you pay, the receipt is actually closer to $70.
Under the Obama rule, optional services like baggage or seat fees or travel insurance can be disclosed through what the Department of Transportation calls a “prominent link.” But by adjusting the language for required cost disclosure “through a link or pop-up,” that functionally reclassifies taxes, fees, and other surcharges that no one can get out of in the same category as those optional fees. The result is a narrowing scope of what the Transportation Department’s Office of Aviation Consumer Protection has authority to oversee.
The industry is trying to roll back a standard whereby the full price of airfare must be shown as one total on websites and other forms of advertising.
Currently, the airfare advertising provision is only in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s version, which is Republican-led under chairman Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO). The Associated Press reported earlier this month that Transportation and Infrastructure Committee ranking member Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) characterized the bill as a compromise. “It’s something we can live with,” he said.
That puts the ball in the court of the Senate Commerce Committee, which is headed by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA). A markup for the Senate’s FAA reauthorization bill originally scheduled for earlier this month has since been delayed. So it’s likely negotiations will begin again the week after July 4.
As the September deadline edges closer, and with no definitive markup date available, the pressure intensifies over whether Cantwell will include the airfare advertising provision from the House bill. At time of writing, Cantwell’s office did not respond to the Prospect’s request for comment. It could be simply rejected and not included in a final bill, but that will have to be an intentional move.
Other issues surrounding the bill have dominated the airwaves. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) has joined with Republicans in an effort to weaken the 1,500-hour rule for pilot certification, by allowing aspiring pilots to use up to 250 hours in a flight simulator toward that total. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who flew helicopters in Iraq and lost both her legs to a rocket attack, said in a Commerce Committee hearing that the provision “will mean blood on your hands when the inevitable accident occurs as a result of an inadequately trained flight crew.” Sinema has taken significant campaign donations from airlines over the past year. The airline pilots’ union also condemned the proposal.
This debate has occurred before. The 1,500-hour rule stems from the 2009 Colgan Air crash near Buffalo, New York. A report from the National Transportation Safety Board found that the plane’s captain was ill-prepared to avoid an aerodynamic stall. In retaliation, the airline carriers threatened to cut service to airports located in areas lawmakers who supported the 1,500-hour rule represent.
In addition, a bipartisan group of lawmakers want streamlined access to Reagan National Airport, ostensibly for their constituents but more likely for themselves. The lawmakers, who must fly to Washington for their jobs, want Reagan National, which is much closer to the Capitol Hill area than Virginia’s Dulles Airport, to offer more nonstop flights outside a 1,250-mile perimeter set in 1986. A few cities beyond that perimeter do get direct access to Dulles, but senators like Ted Cruz (R-TX) want San Antonio added to the list. Democratic senators from Maryland and Virginia want to keep the balance between Reagan and Dulles as it is. Virginia’s Republican governor Glenn Youngkin also wants to keep the perimeter rule in place.
Reagan National is already mired in delays, because of the high demand for flights and the geographic inability to add runways or gate slots. The main runway at the airport is the busiest in the country, which is not coincidental since it’s the place members of Congress most want to land.
The perimeter rule fight, which pits airlines like Delta that want access to Reagan against United, which has a hub at Dulles and doesn’t want to see competition on its routes into the D.C. area, is incredibly parochial, primarily involving the convenience of a few hundred members of Congress and their staffs. But it has dominated debate on the FAA reauthorization bill thus far, leaving issues affecting all travelers like the airfare advertising rule out of the spotlight.
For example, on the pro-perimeter expansion front, Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) joined together to introduce a bill for 28 additional flights out of Reagan National. Delta Air Lines’ headquarters is located in Atlanta, Georgia. And Cody, Wyoming, was one of three cities Delta indefinitely pulled services from.
For airfare advertising, there isn’t conflict among the major airlines. They would all benefit from reduced transparency in pricing practices. From their perspective, it would be best to focus attention on the perimeter rule, and see a consumer protection rollback quietly attached that could never pass on its own merit.
When an FAA reauthorization eventually lands on the president’s desk, it would then be his decision whether or not to sign legislation that undermines the junk fee priorities he laid out earlier this year. At time of writing, the White House did not respond to the Prospect’s request for comment.
