Its rare to see organizations being so blatant in sycophantically pouring lavish praise both where it is not warranted and inaccurately. Such is the situation over at the BTC who along with TCA is now joined by ASTA. For the Full PR statement go here:
http://www.ereleases.com/pr/national-consumer-travel-organizations-praise-president-obama-transportation-secretary-lahood-leadership-hidden-airline-fees-44417
Most political action efforts have a certain degree of puffery to them - but ASTA and CO have made this into an art form. While at the same time praising them for their leadership the 3 organizations seems to take the President and his Secretary of Transportation to task for not beating up on those bad airlines for charging ancillary fees.
This represents a very big switch in the 3 Wise Whiners where previously they were saying they supported the airlines' right to charge these fees now the gloves are off and they are slamming the fees.
And this is where the puffery starts to really come out. So let's play the game with some of their statements:
On the nasty surprise at the airport that is more than the cost of the airfare:
"....that can sometimes double the cost of an airfare upon arrival at the airport"
On the exclusive providers of GDS as ticketing systems:
"....it should require airlines to make all of their ancillary fee information, such as checked bag fees, easily accessible through online and offline travel agencies via the major reservations systems that power those ticketing systems"
On the airlines dastardly plan to undermine the economic health of the USA
"... eliminate the increasing financial burden inflicted upon consumers each and every additional day"
I think you get the message.
But in the interests of full disclosure - I publish the whole document for your edification. As you know I have a motivation to expose some of these outlandish comments, because I can. And I still maintain it is the airlines right to do what they will. It is also poppycock to say that the GDSs should be the exclusive provider of the information. The information is readily available to everyone and disclosure already exists.
What next?
Charging a penalty if you don't disclose the fees on your ballpark tickets forcing all ticket fees to be exposed in say - Ticketmaster. Wait Ticketmaster is already a monopoly in many cases so scratch that example.....
However I checked with all three organizations:
ASTA, BTC and CTA and only found that CTA (which is 3 people) actually put the text out on their website.
http://consumertravelalliance.org/?page_id=37
ASTA does not
BTC doesn't have anything newer than 2008.
It somewhat makes you wonder how committed ASTA and BTC is to this form of questionable PR.
Cheers
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