»»Travel Managers Want Federal Regulations To Force Full Disclosure of Airlines Fees
Most of corporate travel managers lament that they have no idea what the real cost of airplane tickets is going to be when booking air travel.
The New York Times writes that the extra fees that managed travel systems generally do not show when companies buy airline tickets, can increase the cost of a flight 25 percent or even far more.
“Companies negotiate overall discounts annually with various airlines but then use managed travel systems, which work with huge reservation systems called global distribution systems, to book the tickets. Those systems generally show the fares but not all the extra fees for various services like checked bags [...] Fees do add up. In the first quarter of this year, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics at the Transportation Department, airlines took in $768 million in fees for checked bags alone.”
The New York Times says that the Business Travel Coalition plans to testify before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s aviation subcommittee to emphasize that travel managers want federal regulations to force airlines to become more open about fees on all reservations systems, not just their own Web sites.
