US moves to soften its airfare price transparency rule
The Transportation Department wants to relax its airfare advertising rule so airlines no longer have to show the all-in total price more prominently than the base fare, a change that favors carriers and makes the real cost easier to gloss over.
- The current rule requires the total price, including taxes and fees, to be the most prominent figure; the components cannot be shown in the same or larger size as the total.
- The proposal drops that, letting airlines display the base fare and fees with the same prominence as the total (though not larger), so a lower-looking base fare can grab the eye first.
- The DOT justifies it as deregulation, citing free-speech concerns from recent Supreme Court rulings and alignment with tax-advertising standards; the full total price would still have to appear.
Why it matters: It is a small rollback of a hard-won transparency rule, tilted toward the airlines. The full price does not disappear, but the cheaper-sounding base fare gets to shout just as loud, and the surprise at checkout gets a little easier to engineer.
DOT, 'Enhancing Flexibility of Air Fare Price Advertising' (Federal Register proposed rule) ↗ · Jul 6, 20267/6/26