Mark Pestronk
Q: In your July 21 column, “The fate of consumer-protection rules,” you wrote, “It will be a year until the president’s immediate-repeal directive can take effect, and it will probably be another year until we know which regulations are in fact repealed.” However, Travel Weekly reports that the DOT is already proposing to repeal consumer-protection rules adopted over the last decade or so. What are the proposals, and how would repeal affect travel agencies?
A: My July column assumed that the administration would be true to its word and issue immediate repeals without going through the steps required by the Administrative Procedure Act, including a notice of proposed rulemaking, a comment period and a final rule with an explanation that has a rational basis. Now, it looks like secretary Sean Duffy’s DOT is going to follow the required legal steps, meaning that with court appeals, it will probably be three years before we know for certain which rules are really gone.
Between January 2012 and December 2024, the DOT adopted a series of important consumer protection rules that affected how airlines and agencies sell airline tickets and packages containing airline tickets. The department is now proposing to repeal or roll back all of them.
For example, the DOT adopted the full-fare advertising rule in 2012. Now the department has announced that it wants to amend the rule “to allow airlines and ticket agents greater flexibility in how they advertise air fares. … The rule would eliminate overly prescriptive requirements which prevent airlines from highlighting covering taxes on air transportation.”
In truth, airlines and travel agents are not prevented from “highlighting taxes.” The 2012 rule is designed to avoid misleading ads and misunderstandings by requiring airlines and travel agencies to quote and display the full fare first, including government taxes and fees. The rule also requires printed displays to show the full fare more prominently than taxes and fees, but it does not say that the latter cannot be highlighted, as well.
Most recently, the DOT proposed in very late 2024 to require airlines to compensate travelers for delays and cancellations, like airlines must do in the EU. Now, the DOT has announced that it intends to withdraw that notice, so there will be no required compensation to consumers for delays or cancellations.
As I’m sure you can predict, the DOT has also proposed to loosen up the requirements of last year’s automatic refund rule that applies to agencies that are merchants of record.
The only consumer-protection rule that the DOT has not mentioned is the codeshare rule adopted in 1998, which requires advertisements and quotes for codeshare flights to name the operating airline. However, I would not be surprised if that rule goes on the chopping block in the next year or two.
So all the consumer-protection progress that advocacy groups and ASTA have made over the last generation will have been for naught. Consistent with conservative values and effective airline lobbying, we are heading toward true deregulation of the business of air transportation.
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