The Juiceman

Curious to see if airlines will do away with YQ if they must post full fare.

http://www.latimes.com/business/mone...tory?track=rss

By Hugo Martin

January 1, 2012, 12:56 p.m.
Fly from Albuquerque to Tucson on Southwest Airlines for $59, from Asheville, N.C., to Orlando on Allegiant Air for $49, or from Boston to Chicago on Spirit Airlines for only $9.

If these fares seem too good to be true, that’s because they are. An asterisk accompanies the online ads for the fares, with the fine print indicating that additional fees and taxes apply. In some cases the additional charges raise the final ticket price by 20% or more.

Starting Jan. 26, no more asterisks. A new U.S. Transportation Department rule requires all advertised air fares to include any compulsory taxes and fees, including fuel charges and the Sept. 11 Security Fee.

"The price advertising provision was adopted to make sure passengers know the full amount they will have to pay for air transportation when they buy a ticket," said agency spokesman Bill Mosley.

The federal regulation does not require that fares include optional baggage fees or charges for food and on-board entertainment.

But Southwest, Spirit and Allegiant are fighting the rule in a legal challenge filed in November with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The airlines claim that the federal agency has no proof that the practice of advertising base fares and the fees and taxes separately is "unfair or deceptive conduct," according to court documents.

The airlines also described the new rule as "arbitrary and capricious" because the practice of advertising fees and taxes separately has been used for years by "virtually every other industry in the United States." Despite the legal challenge, Mosley said his agency planned to begin enforcing the rule Jan. 26.

Southwest and Allegiant representatives said they would abide by the rule while they pursue the legal challenge. A spokeswoman for Spirit Airlines declined to comment.

JayhawkCO

This is based on advertising, not actual pricing of fares and surcharges.

Chris

The Juiceman

What purpose, other than advertising, is there to having extremely low base fares?

irishguy28

Hah! As if.

Remember that in many places it has been a requirement for some time now to advertise all-in fares. Whether or not an airline has to disclose a value that includes the YQ or not is hardly going to become the main factor on which an airline determines if a fuel surcharge is required in the first place.

azepine00

I suspect some sort of creative accounting. Many fares with high YQ were never advertised as base fares to begin with.

Plus they can still happily charge them on award flights - i wonder how those "free" flights are interpreted under this new regulation.

I really hope there will be similar regulation covering rental car taxes and fees and mandatory resort fees.

janetdoe

Guesses:
1. In some countries, airfare may be taxed differently than surcharges.
2. Some airlines tack on surcharges to award tickets, so it allows a stealth devaluation of awards.
3. Harder for competition to sort through the fare rules and figure out the true ticket price

But I think advertising or manipulation is the key. AA had a recent bug/experiment where they displayed the outbound leg with zero YQ, but the return leg with double YQ. There were a lot of people who got very excited because they thought they were getting a 'steal' on the outbound, even though the net prices were identical to the prices they had been monitoring for weeks.