In recent years, airlines have cited rising fuel costs as reasons to jack up passenger fares, but with oil trading around decade lows, why haven’t ticket prices come back down?
That’s the question U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal is asking. The Connecticut senator called this week for the U.S. Department of Transportation to investigate the matter.
In 2012, DOT prohibited airlines from imposing additional fuel charges unless they could be directly linked to the additional cost of fuel, Blumenthal said. But airlines soon started assessing other chargers, such as “international/domestic surcharges,” he said.
“These seem to be the same bogus charges, simply by a different name,” Blumenthal wrote in a Feb. 22 letter to DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx. “Accordingly, I write to urge you to use your statutory authority to investigate whether these surcharges are unfair and deceptive, and to take swift and appropriate enforcement action to ensure consumers know what these surcharges reflect.”
