In October 2022, the DOT issued its “Enhancing Transparency of Airline Ancillary Service Fees” Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, finding that the lack of transparency in the disclosure of ancillary fee information is an unfair and deceptive practice under 49 U.S.C. § 41712.
In January 2023, Travel Tech submitted its comments in response to the NPRM. The comments detailed Travel Tech’s overall support, but raised the following concerns as well:
- The proposed rule would mandate ultra-specific website designs regulations for first-page search results for ticket agents and airlines.
- The proposed rule would also limit the entities to which the airlines are required to provide ancillary fee data, cutting out Global Distribution Systems. Doing so will increase fare distribution costs significantly and greatly delay implementation of ancillary fee transparency for consumers.
In addition to its comments, Travel Tech filed a hearing petition to address factual issues raised by DOT’s proposed requirement to display the “critical” ancillary fee information on the first page of online search results.
Travel Tech’s hearing petition was granted by the DOT and held on March 31, 2023. Watch the hearing.
Laura Chadwick, President & CEO, of Travel Tech testified on behalf of Travel Tech members. She stated, “Travel Tech firmly believes that our member companies are best positioned to innovate and determine how ancillary fee information should be presented to consumers.” Chadwick also stressed that DOT must alter its proposed rule and require airlines to provide critical ancillary fee data to all intermediaries – including global distribution systems – the airlines use to distribute their schedule and fare information. Read her full testimony.
