Canada’s Inclusive Airfare Advertising Rules Take Effect

The Canadian Transportation Agency finalized amendments to its Air Transportation Regulations to mandate all-inclusive air fare advertising to “ensure consumers can clearly see the total price of an airline ticket, with no hidden fees.”

The new rules, finalized in December, require air service advertisers to display the total price a consumer must pay in order to fly, including all taxes, fees and charges.

Optional services displayed
While optional services do not have to be included in the total advertised air fare price, the advertiser must make the consumer aware of these additional costs, and each individual optional service must be displayed as a total price, including taxes, etc.

The amendments apply to the price of air services advertised in any media to the public, for travel within or originating in Canada.

The transport agency defines air service advertisers as any “individual, company, corporation or partnership, air carriers, travel agents, tours operators, online travel agents, etc.,” that advertises air fares.

Those advertisers also must provide access to a breakdown of the taxes, fees and charges and any optional services offered for a fee or charge.

Agency promises guidance
The transport agency said it “will work cooperatively with air price advertisers and provide guidance to ensure early compliance with the regulations and overall success in the implementation of the regulations. The agency will use a proactive and collaborative, educational approach to ensure that air price advertisers are aware of their responsibility to comply as early as possible with the regulations.”

It also held out the possibility of fines.

The agency said it expects air price advertisers to comply “as quickly as possible” with the new regulations.

ACTA: not broad enough
When the proposed regulations were published last summer, the Association of Canadian Travel Agents said they were not broad enough to protect agents and consumers from “abusive” practices by tour operators using charter airlines.

Not everyone agreed. Flight Centre Canada, one of the country’s largest travel retailers, said the regulation will level the playing field for airlines and travel agencies.

(See: ACTA: Canada’s New Airfare Ad Rule Won’t Stop Abusive Behavior)

Decision awaited from U.S. DOT
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Transportation again delayed a decision on whether to require airlines to provide optional fee information through all sales channels, including the GDSs. The decision is now expected in May.

A “We the People” petition to the White House that sought to mandate the inclusion of optional fees in all sales channels failed to gather the 25,000 signatures required for a White House response. The final tally on the petition, which was spearheaded by the Business Travel Coalition, was 3,100.

BTC chairman Kevin Mitchell has posted the petition to www.surveymonkey.com/s/HiddenAirlineFees so that signatories can be added through May, the new DOT timeframe for publishing the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

He said the new site will not require visitors to register, provide an email address and verify the address, as the White House process required. “This should help us reach a respectable number, as we did in 2010 when we delivered a letter to Transportation Secretary LaHood with 50,000 signatures in just three weeks,” he said. “It eventually reached 64,000.”