A Move to Add Still More Fine Print to Advertised Airfares (Continued) But if the large airlines win their lobbying battle to loosen industry advertising regulations, the proposed changes would give them leeway to also advertise fares that do not include the entire amount that the airline would receive. For instance, an airline could advertise a fare and then add a fuel surcharge, increasing the overall cost of the ticket. That could make price comparison more difficult. "It looks like the airlines are going to get free rein to do whatever they want," said Henry H. Harteveldt, a travel analyst at Forrester Research. "Buying an airfare is confusing enough now. This could make it even more confusing." Fuel is now the biggest expense at airlines, even ahead of labor costs. Though it is the most likely candidate to be broken out as a surcharge, other costs, like insurance, might also get itemized if the ad rules are loosened. Passengers have turned out in droves to book their flights through Internet travel sites that compare airfares. Such shopping, along with the spread of low-cost airlines, has pushed prices sharply lower in recent years. Some older airlines with higher costs were nudged into bankruptcy. Critics fear looser advertising rules would reduce the transparency of pricing and thus give traditional airlines more market power to raise fares. Well-informed buyers are able to drive a harder bargain in most cases, but opaque pricing favors sellers. Shopping "would be more difficult and would take much more searching around," John Herrman, a retired college professor in Libby, Mont., said of the proposed relaxing of the rules. "That's because airlines would doubtlessly make it difficult to determine comparative costs. "Tabby Stone, a pediatrician in Playa Del Ray, Calif., said of the Transportation Department, which regulates fare advertising, "If they allow it, then the government doesn't care about truth in advertising." The lobbying battle is essentially shaping up as a fight between older airlines and everyone else. The older airlines — United Airlines, American Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines — are smarting from price competition. The rest, a coalition of travel agents, individual travelers and low-cost carriers, like Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways, have made the industry more price competitive. Southwest sees the proposed changes as a way to blunt apples-to-apples price comparisons. United says the existing rules are unnecessary for an industry deregulated nearly 30 years ago. United would not say how it might change its ads if allowed to. In comments to the Transportation Department, it appears that most individuals opposed loosening ad regulations. But experts nevertheless expect the agency to approve some relaxing of the rules. Loosening the rules is all but a done deal, concluded Paul M. Ruden, senior vice president for legal and industry affairs at the American Society of Travel Agents. "Why else would this rule be up for re-evaluation?" he said. "They want to make it more difficult for people to compare fares." The current rules work fine, Mr. Ruden added. Brian Turmail, a Transportation Department spokesman, said that no decision has been made yet. "We're committed to doing this in a thorough manner." The battle over advertising broke into the open last September after an industry group, the Air Transport Association of America, asked for permission for its members to advertise fuel surcharges separately from base air fares. Higher fuel prices were deepening industry losses and airlines were not having much luck at raising fares to cover the fuel increases. The request was turned down because regulation requires any surcharge set at the discretion of airlines to be included in the base fare. But Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta was apparently sympathetic to the plea of the airlines. He wrote to the association on Sept. 13 and said he had decided to throw open for potential change the agency's regulation of airfare advertising. Currently, airlines can advertise a fare that omits certain government fees and taxes as long as those charges are also disclosed, enabling consumers to add them all up and determine a final price. The Transportation Department is the only agency allowed to regulate airfare advertising, with the Federal Trade Commission and state officials pre-empted from accusing an airline of deceptive advertising. That makes the Transportation Department's rules, and how they are enforced, all the more crucial. Mr. Turmail, the Transportation Department spokesman, said that the aviation enforcement office has 15 lawyers who handle advertising and a wide range of other work. Without the stricter rules now in effect, the agency's staff wrote in a public notice inviting comment on possible rule changes, "enforcement action against abusive advertising practices is likely to be considerably more costly and time consuming." In the notice published on Dec. 14, the department laid out four options: leave regulation unchanged; tighten the rules so that only the total price could be advertised; eliminate much of the regulation and require only that the total price be disclosed before a purchase is made — potentially requiring any advertisement to include all elements of a fare so that consumers can add them up; eliminate the regulation entirely, allowing airlines to do as they please as long as the ads are not deceptive. The agency's staff, in the notice, said that current regulations encourage competition. But it also said that other travel-related industries, notably car rental and hotels, have more flexibility in advertising prices with or without taxes, fees and, in some cases, portions of their own costs. Moreover, advertisement of some international fares is less regulated. British Airways, for instance, on its Web site yesterday offered on its initial flight booking screens a trip New York to London in mid-March for $159 each way. Further clicking, however, revealed a total price of $425.20. And that included a fuel surcharge of $55 each way. The airline, said John Lampl, a spokesman, has been breaking out a fuel surcharge since 2004. "Airlines should be treated like everybody else," said Robin Urbanski, a United spokeswoman. She would not say how United might advertise differently if the rules change. Robert W. Kneisley, associate general counsel at Southwest, said: "I'd hate to think we're aspiring to be just as good as car-rental outfits. They're maddening." Southwest is worried, for instance, that a competitor would advertise a $10 base fare with a $100 fuel surcharge. "If the industry as a whole engages in mass deception, who knows what we would have to do to be competitive," he said. Arthur Sackler, executive director of the Interactive Travel Services Association, said in a comment to the agency opposing the changes sought by the big airlines: "Consumers should not need a calculator to compare fares." Much of the big airlines' misery, of course, occurred after they moved to rid themselves of costly travel agents. Airlines started putting fare information on their Web sites. That allowed easy comparison shopping. Services like Expedia and Orbitz captured a big share of ticket sales and further encouraged consumers to shop by price. If airline advertisements begin to appear deceptive to consumers, said Steve Morrison, chairman of the economics department at Northeastern University, it would only drive more consumers to services like Expedia and Orbitz. "If that's where you have to go to get the truth, that would strengthen their hand," he said. Even if the rules are loosened, Mr. Morrison said, and fares are advertised less uniformly, the online services will be able to add up the many price elements and publish a complete fare. "The market will adjust," he said. "A very few people do most of the traveling. And we can imagine they're very sophisticated. So it's not going to fool them." Source: The New York Times