Travel Tech Submits Formal Comment on DOT Passenger Protection NPRM
The Travel Technology Association is the trade association for the travel technology industry. ACTA supports the initiatives of The Travel Technology Association who is recognized as the trade association dedicated to promoting public policy that helps connects consumers and travel providers, eliminates barriers to travel, and protects the traveling public. Travel Tech members include: Orbitz, Expedia, Priceline, Sabre, Amadeus, Travelport, Airbnb, HomeAway, TripAdvisor, and Vegas.com.The Travel Technology Association (Travel Tech) released the following statement after submitting its formal comment to the Department of Transportation (DOT) today on the Passenger Protection III Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM).
“This NPRM is truly a mixed bag – with proposals that provide transparency in airfares and protect the traveler and the marketplace, and others that are onerous and fraught with unintended consequences," said Steve Shur, President of Travel Tech. "Travel Tech supports DOT’s efforts to make ancillary services and fees such as baggage, seat selection, and early boarding available to the consumer at the time of shopping and ticket purchase. There are clear consumer benefits to be achieved with such a policy, although DOT needs to go further to ensure transactability and to ensure that GDSs receive the ancillary fee information. However, DOT has gone well beyond reason in proposing an entirely new regulatory regime over ticket agents. Unlike the Department’s ancillary fee actions, these proposed regulations are not based on consumer complaints or to correct a marketplace failure.
“Travel Tech has made it clear in its comments to DOT that there is no basis for many of the proposed regulations on ticket agents. Furthermore, and among the most alarming concerns for all ticket agents, is a potential outcome that requires ticket agents to disclose airline information to consumers but does not require the airlines to provide that information to GDSs and OTAs. This would result in an untenable situation for participants in the distribution channel, where approximately 50% of all air travel is booked,” Shur concluded.
The wide-ranging DOT document seeks to address an expansive array of issues impacting the travel marketplace. In its comments, The Travel Technology Association addresses most of the issues and questions raised by the DOT.
Below you can find a quick guide to pivotal sections of Travel Tech’s formal comment. Find Travel Tech’s comments in their entirety here.
Travel Tech Supports Transparency and Transactability of Basic Ancillary Fees
As we’ve seen over the last few years, airlines have begun to systematically unbundle services – from seat selection to pre-boarding – that were once a part of the price of a plane ticket. By withholding these services from ticket agents, airlines have deprived consumers from being able to effectively comparison shop the full cost of a flight which includes the travel services they want and need. Travel Tech supports action to require airlines to make basic ancillary fee data transparent and transactable via travel distributors. However, this is only possible if DOT requires airlines to provide that ancillary fee information to ticket agents in a transactable format through indirect channels including GDSs.
Travel Tech Opposes the Proposed Rule Concerning Undisclosed Bias
The Department’s proposal regarding undisclosed display bias is unnecessarily intrusive and shouldn’t be adopted. If adopted, it would mark the first time the DOT, by regulation, directed the display order to be used by ticket agents. This unjustified micromanagement of airfare displays is regulatory overkill and unnecessary in light of the existing DOT requirement that any carrier-identity based screen bias be disclosed.
DOT Should Not Adopt the Proposed Rule Requiring Detailed Customer Service Commitments for “Large Agencies”
Travel Tech supports measured regulation when there is a need to solve a market-failure such as the inability of ticket agents to display and transact ancillary fees that are critical for consumers. Conversely, Travel Tech opposes regulations that seem to be based solely on conjecture. Travel agencies compete hard with one another on the basis of customer service, and the evidence proves that they have a strong record of customer satisfaction. By contrast, most consumer issues arising from airline services and practices are matters within the control of airlines, not agencies. Travel Tech also questions the criteria used for defining “large agencies”, which is undefined in the NPRM. Simply put, this proposal amounts to nothing more than a solution in search of a problem.
The Airline Practice of Restricting Information Received from Intermediaries
Travel Tech believes it is in the spirit of the Department’s rulemaking effort to make fares, schedules, and availability data widely available to consumers, including ticket agents, other travel site operators, and individual travelers. It is contrary to the DOT’s goal to allow airlines to suppress the use of data by ticket agents who get the data from third parties with which they have contractual agreements.
DOT Should Not Require Disclosures Concerning Airlines Not Marketed by an Agency
The DOT raises for comment the question of whether large agencies should be required to disclose the fact that they do not display all the carriers that serve a particular market. This proposal makes about as much sense as requiring airlines to state on their website that, “you may find other options or better deals by visiting the websites of online travel agents or by calling a travel agent” or “other airlines also offer flights on this route.” There has been no evidence that consumers are harmed by the absence of a requirement to disclose that not all carriers are displayed, and this is particularly so where it is the carrier that has chosen not to market its services through a specific OTA. Thus, the Department should let the market govern itself.
These are just a few examples of the many provisions proposed by DOT that will require extensive consideration beyond today’s comment filing deadline.