<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by nsx:
A fee holiday will go and should go to the carriers as they increase the net price to keep the gross price the same. Look for plenty of articles by economic illiterates complaining that the airlines are gouging passengers. </font>
If the government isn't collecting the fee from the airlines, the airlines should not be allowed to charge it SEPARATELY to the passengers. That's like trying to charge sales tax to your walk-in customers if you're a store in a state that doesn't have a sales tax.
Airlines have captured savings before from tax holidays (like the temporary ticket-tax expiration a few years ago) when taxes were in the BASE fare. But because this is an add-on charge, it should not be passed on during the tax holiday.
If airlines want to try to raise the base fare by the amount lowered in the security charge, then fine. I think competitive pressures can take care of that.
From the flyer's perspective, the fewer the add-ons, the better.
[This message has been edited by RustyC (edited 04-17-2003).]