Chris K. Anderson, professor of services operations management at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration and expert in hospitality prices, comments on tomorrow’s expected recommendations from the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protection to the Department of Transportation regarding the disclosure of airline fees.
He says:
“The upcoming DOT advisory committee discussion on airline ancillary fees and taxes is an important step toward the dissemination to symmetric information to all consumers about the pending cost of their upcoming flight. The earlier steps to ensure full disclosure of all taxes is completely logical and offers very little hindrance in implementation or potential consumer backlash as we are all accustomed to paying taxes. “The DOT's committee looks to extend that to ancillary fees, these fees being much more of an issue in the eyes of consumers as we hate getting nickeled and dimed to death. The issue here becomes one of implementation as the recent announcement by American Airlines and Priceline illustrates.
“Priceline and American announced the first such partnership whereby the Online Travel Agent or third-party intermediary Priceline allows consumers to opt-in and pay an additional fee for a better seat – given that this is the first such arrangement, which has received a fair bit of attention in the travel related press – it seems most intermediaries and several airlines are not in a place to technologically deliver the asks of the committee.”
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