Critical Travel Consumer Issues

A plentiful supply of cheap traveloptions such as cheapfares, cheapdeals, cheap airplane tickets, discount hotel rooms, cheap auto rentals, discounttravel deals, and cheap vacation packages makestravel affordable for the average American. Unfortunately travelers continue to face barriers to fair and equitabletreatment when they purchase and use travel services.

Disproportionate power is heldtoday by travel providers. Thegovernment often does not quickly and effectively police abuses. Ultimately travelers will have to wait forsome combination of voluntary industry action, government regulation, consumeractivism, and litigation, to ensure traveler rights.

The following are criticaltravel consumer issues, according to Smarter Travel:

• Outmoded air traffic control exasperates delaysand cancellations due to weather problems many of which could be avoided with amore accurate and dependable all weather air traffic control (ATC) system. Runway capacity limitations contribute toyear round problems at major airports. Problems will only become worse unless the nations ATC systemscapacity grows along with air traffic.

  Theanswer is the Federal Aviation Administrations Next Gen satellite basednavigation/communication system. Whileit is promising that we have the technology to help fix the problems, fundingremains a problem because many airlines are balking at the expense arguing thatthe government should pay for the necessary equipment to be installed onairplanes.

• Hidden mandatory fees violate at least some ofthe truth in advertising laws. SpiritAirlines is the worst among airlines in advertising one price and consistentlycollecting much more from passengers before departure. Hotels, rental car companies, and othertravel suppliers continue to routinely omit mandatory fees from featuredprices. Government enforcement oftransparent pricing laws and rules today is lacking.

• Hotel and rental car companies routinelyoverbook. While the federal governmentrequires airlines to offer specific compensation to travelers bumped as aresult of overbooking, there are no state or local laws specifying anyoverbooking compensation requirements for hotels or rental car companies. Both major hotel and car rental trade associationsshould develop national customer bill of rights procedures which spell out customercompensation or legal action should be taken by the states.

• Frequent flier program abuses abound. Airlines have total control over how theyallocate or fail to allocate award seats. Frequent fliers biggest complaint is that so often no free seats areavailable when desired. When airlinesadvertise sale prices, the Department of Transportation (DOT) requires that theairlines offer a reasonable number of seats at those fares. The DOT should require a similar availabilityof award seats.

• Credit card protections are lacking for mosttravel purchases. In many cases the cardholder must notify his bank of a billing error within 60 days of the date onwhich an item first appears on a card statement. Often claims are limited to purchases frommerchants within 100 miles of your home. State and federal representatives need to close these loopholes incredit card protections for travel purchases.

• The U.S. suffers from an inefficient andunderfunded passenger rail system that cannot keep up with current needs, muchless build for the future. Europe andAsia enjoy state of the art rail systems that benefit from major improvementsevery few months. Only by gettingCongress to consistently and seriously fund railroads can the situationimprove.

• Contracts of adhesion are one sided,non-negotiated agreements that are common in the travel industry. Travelers enjoy few rights whereas travelproviders can escape their responsibilities and set up road blocks to anyonetrying to gain legal redress. Courtshave been inconsistent when ruling whether such contracts are enforceable. Legislation will be required to resolve thisproblem.

• Excessive optional airline fees are oftendefined by any fees in excess of 200 percent of the original cost of theservice. It took new DOT regulations tofinally resolve problems concerning extended (over four hours) runways delayswith no food, water, or operating toilet facilities. Given that airlines have proved unwilling toaddress grossly excessive fees, the DOT should step in.

• Meaningful price comparisons between travelproviders, particularly airlines and hotels, have become difficult, if notimpossible, because of fee differences. Currentlyonline search engines present basic ticket prices before fees. Ideally search engines should providecustomers the ability to search for total prices from the beginning.

• Survival of independent airlines is vital whenyou consider that the remaining four largest airlines control over 70 percentof the total domestic market. Thesegiant airlines may well try to acquire the biggest remaining independents,especially Alaska, Hawaiian, and JetBlue. Independent airlines provide unique products and offer pricing formulasthat do not copy the giants. Furtherairline mergers should be discouraged so long as the four largest airlinesmaintain such a dominating share of the overall market.