Q&A: Journey Expertise Affiliation on DOT transparency proposals

In late September, the DOT proposed requiring airlines and all sellers of air travel to reveal baggage fees, change and cancellation fees and any family-seating charges on the identical time base ticket costs are revealed. 

Journey Weekly spoke with Stewart Alvarez, president of the Travel Technology Association, which represents OTAs, metasearch websites and GDSs, concerning the proposal.

Does the Journey Expertise Affiliation help disclosure necessities for ancillary charges?

The first factor Journey Tech and its members have all the time supported is transparency for customers. I feel the core of what the division and the administration try to deal with is de facto to ensure that the buyer has entry to the entire related info for his or her journey.

Are there any parts of what they’ve put ahead that concern you?

All the time, when you’ve got a broad rule like this, the place the regulator is attempting to deal with sure issues, we wish to ensure that issues are addressed in the simplest, environment friendly method for the business utilizing finest practices and business requirements. Whenever you deviate from that it might probably current challenges on the implementation aspect. And so for that purpose we’re actively reviewing all of the elements of the rule and what the division is proposing in order that we will weigh in to ensure that issues are carried out in a fashion that’s handiest for the business.

One probably difficult portion of this proposal is the requirement to reveal what it may cost for a household touring with somebody age 13 or below to take a seat collectively. There is not only one potential value. The price at any second on a specific flight might rely on what row of seats the consumer chooses, for instance. Might that be a problem for the OTAs, metas and GDSs?

I feel that is the place we might be offering feedback to assist the division construction the rule in a approach the place it could make sense. If you’re doing an preliminary search, you additionally need to differentiate between an airline web site, which is single-carrier show, versus an OTA, which is multi-carrier show.

In a multi-carrier show, you would very effectively have carriers that do not have bag charges, do not have seat charges, due to this fact the fare is what you are going to pay, versus others that cost completely different costs, whether or not it is the carry-on, first bag or second bag but additionally which seat on the aircraft you occupy. And so as to decide that, it’s a must to decide the flight. You may’t do this with six completely different flights on the display.

Journey Tech members all the time wish to give attention to the buyer and ensuring that they are introduced with all of the choices which can be accessible to them. Right here, with the division’s purpose of enhancing transparency, as long as our members get the knowledge, will probably be introduced. And we’re used to presenting multi-carrier shows. So you probably have six airways, and so they all have a special sort of coverage for seats, assuming that we go and use current business requirements and finest practices, I feel that we’ll have the ability to take the complexity out for the buyer.

Might it really be simpler to your members to standardize shows as a result of the rules will spell out exactly what airways need to put ahead?

I do not know that it is that clear, however sure, if it was that clear that the airways had to supply all the pieces. If you happen to have a look at the duty on seats, it is just for a particular demographic. It is for households touring with kids below the age of 13, which actually begs the query: What about all people else who’s touring? Do not you assume they wish to sit collectively? If you happen to’re touring together with your 15-year-old or 17-year-old, I assume that they’d wish to sit subsequent to you, as effectively. 

*This article first appeared in Travel Weekly.