NBTA Proposes Improved Service Framework for U.S. Air Travel

The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) - the voice of the global business travel industry - will file comments this week with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) advocating for an improved framework of customer service requirements for purchasers of air travel. The NBTA position -- outlined in response to a wide-ranging DOT proposal on "Enhancing Airline Customer Protections" - focuses on three major areas of protection for airline customers: expanding protections against lengthy tarmac delays; updating denied boarding compensation caps; and providing full transparency for the sale of airline ancillary products or fees. 

NBTA Executive Director & COO, Michael W. McCormick said, "We commend the Department of Transportation for tackling complex service issues in a rapidly shifting air travel industry. Our recommendations reflect the broad-based consensus of the business travel community. We believe that government should establish baseline operating standards for airlines, including providing business travelers and their companies with the information they need to make purchasing decisions. Beyond that, airlines should be free to make their own business decisions, and government should not be in the business of micromanaging airline service levels."

Expanding Tarmac Delay Requirements

NBTA supports most of the DOT proposals to expand the requirements put into place last year to protect against excessive tarmac delays by requiring most U.S. airlines to develop contingency plans for handling these most egregious delays. The proposed DOT rule would expand the contingency planning requirements to include foreign carriers, and to add small airports to those covered in the requirement.

Enhancing Oversales and Denied Boarding Compensation Requirements

The NBTA filing generally supports DOT's proposed enhancements of regulations related to oversales and denied boarding compensation (DBC). The rule would increase DBC from the current $400 one-way/$800 roundtrip to $650/$1,300. Further, the DBC would adjust automatically every two years to account for inflation. The DOT also seeks to apply DBC rules to tickets purchased with reward (frequent flyer) program points. 

Lastly, the DOT rulemaking aims to give travelers added flexibility in the form of payment for DBC by requiring airlines to offer cash or check compensation. While NBTA supports the spirit of that proposal, the association recommended all such compensation be credited to the form of payment used to purchase the original ticket. That would restore the funds to the purchaser, which may be different than the traveler, in the case of a business traveler traveling on a ticket purchased on a company credit card, for example. 

Transparency for Airline Fees

The DOT proposed rules center around disclosure of airline fees on the airlines' own websites and eticket confirmations. NBTA contends that these proposals do not do enough to protect business and consumers purchasing air travel tickets today or in the future, navigating an ever-more complex array of ancillary airline fees or products. 

From the perspective of managing expenses, fees equal fares. To enable business travelers, their companies, and other air travel consumers to make informed decisions, NBTA in its filing reiterated the position that DOT should establish a framework for transparency so travelers and booking agents can understand the total cost of travel before booking a ticket. On the other hand, the requirements should not stifle innovation in airline sales or in the myriad distribution models in the marketplace. To accomplish these dual goals, DOT should require airlines to provide fees information along with faring information such that any platform selling airline inventory can acquire and display the fees information for those researching and booking travel, without dictating how the fees data be transmitted or displayed. 

The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) is the world's premier business travel and corporate meetings organization. NBTA and its regional affiliates - NBTA Australia/New Zealand, the Brazilian Business Travel Association (ABGEV), NBTA Canada, NBTA Europe, NBTA Mexico, and NBTA USA - serve a network of more than 17,000 business travel professionals around the globe with industry-leading events, networking, education & professional development, research, news & information, and advocacy. NBTA members, numbering more than 5,000 in 30 nations, are corporate and government travel and meetings managers, as well as travel service providers. They collectively manage and direct more than US$340 billion of global business travel and meetings expenditures annually on behalf of more than 13 million business travelers within their organizations. For more information, visit www.nbta.org.