Originally Posted by
gooselee
Ahh, yes. That was me typing fast and trying to replicate the "government taxes and fees" language that seems to be prevalent, and in which I assume the "government" specifier serves to differentiate the "fees" portion - e.g., the TSA fee vs. carrier-imposed fees.
Thanks for the acknowledgment.
Originally Posted by
gooselee
In any case, call them whatever you want, the difference to me is that the costs that get passed back to the government are the same and relatively predictable across all carriers, so excluding them doesn't do much harm to the comparative shopping process for consumers. But if carrier-imposed fees can also be excluded from advertised prices, then that makes a big difference since they can vary greatly from one carrier to another, and at the end of the day are contributing to each carrier's bottom line.
I think there are cases where excluding taxes makes comparative shopping more difficult, though I suppose they're a small share of all fares. Local airport taxes could be different between alternate airports located in different jurisdictions, for example.
Then there's the consumer who wants to answer the question "where can I go on May 30th for $1000 or less?" It's impossible if taxes are excluded.