Travelers are accustomed to seeing an all-inclusive price for airfare when browsing flights online, but they may soon need to read the fine print before purchasing as Washington is trying to change disclosure requirements.
The Department of Transportation proposed new regulations last month that would allow airlines to highlight fares without individual components such as taxes.
The change could mislead consumer, marketing and aviation experts said. The existing guidelines were established by the Obama administration to protect consumers from deception.
The Trump administration thinks the policy is too rigid. The total airfare would still have to be listed in some manner under the new rules.
“These proposed changes would ensure greater flexibility in how airfare is displayed,” the Department of Transportation said in its proposal.
How would prices be advertised under the new regulations?
The new rules would allow airlines to advertise components of airfare more prominently than the total price. This could mean that the first listed price could be missing major components. Some critics of the policy warn that airlines could misuse this freedom to entice customers with low base fares and high fees.
A recent online search showed that a one-way Delta Airlines flight from Los Angeles International Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport in September cost $168. The ticket alone costs $142. The higher total was due to taxes and fees, including a U.S. transportation tax, a U.S. passenger facility charge and a civil aviation security service fee. Checking bags, seat selection and changing a flight would add further fees.
“The airlines would have more leeway in terms of showing the price of the actual flight compared to the additional taxes and fees,” said Stephen Pratt, a professor at the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management. “Transparency in pricing is a good thing for consumers and gives the power back to the consumers.”
Shoppers would see the total price before they pay for a ticket — but it may be at the last minute. Depending on the airline, the difference between the base fare and the total fare can be large.
For example, a recent search showed a base fare for a JetBlue flight from Los Angeles to London at $21. The base fare did not include $328 in taxes and fees. $290 of those dollars come from a carrier fee.
“At the end of the day, you’re going to pay that final price and you’re going to see that final price,” said Justine Farrell, department chair and professor of marketing at the University of San Diego. “But you get a lot of frustration when you are going through that whole decision process.”
How could this change online flight shopping?
The Department of Transportation’s new regulations could make it more complicated to shop for flights and compare prices, Farrell said. With the total price displayed upfront, it is easy to compare fares within an airline or use a tool such as Google Flights to see fares across different airlines.
If the total price isn’t prominently displayed or isn’t shown until the end of the purchasing process, consumers may have to go through the checkout process for several flights to see which is the cheapest.
“It just exacerbates the consumer confusion as they’re trying to navigate pricing of airlines,” Farrell said. “It seems like it’s making an already confusing consumer decision less transparent. You’re trying to find not just the best deal but also the best route and maybe you have an airline preference.”
The new rules could make comparison shopping sites such as Expedia and Kayak harder to use.
“This would allow the airlines to make it harder to do the comparison,” Pratt said. “That’s been a common business strategy for lots of different industries in the past,” including phone companies.
What are the existing regulations?
Airfare advertising is currently governed by the “full fare advertising rule,” established in 2012. It prohibits prominent display of individual fare components and requires the full price to be shown up front, “including in the first instance following an itinerary search,” according to a Department of Transportation document.
“The full fare advertising rule was intended to prevent consumer confusion or deception by advertisements of low base fares that did not reflect the total cost of air transportation,” the document said.
This is not the first time lawmakers have tried to soften the rule. In 2023, representatives on the House Transportation Committee proposed a bill that would have allowed airlines to prioritize advertisement of the base fare.
How are people and airlines responding?
Individuals and consumer advocates are wary of the proposed changes. Southwest Airlines is also against changing the rules.
The Department of Transportation recently extended the public comment period for its proposal from July 31 to Aug. 21. Southwest had requested the extension, along with the trade association Airlines for America and the Travel Technology Association.
“An entire generation of consumers has shopped and purchased air travel under this system, and we believe a change could be extremely disruptive,” Southwest wrote in its request. “To allow stakeholders adequate time to consider the impact of these potential changes, we believe that it is in the public interest to grant interested parties additional time to provide comments.”
The proposal has garnered nearly 1,000 comments from groups and members of the public.
“The ‘Full Fare Rule’ is a vital underpinning of modern flight shopping and must not be repealed or watered down in any way,” wrote Jason Rabinowitz on July 8. “Government taxes and fees and carrier-imposed fees make up the bulk of airline ticket pricing in today’s fare filings.”
Another comment advocated for simplicity by maintaining the status quo.
“Keep the rules regarding the display of airline fares the same,” wrote Tom Fox on July 6. “The proposed changes will make things more confusing for the consumers.”
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