The airline and hotel industries are pushing back against federal legislation against “junk fees” — charges for basic services that consumer advocates say are often hidden or excessive — after President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass the new regulations in the State of the Union address on Tuesday.
The bill, dubbed the Junk Fee Prevention Act, would have major impacts on visitors to Orlando, including what fees resorts and hotels would be able to charge and how airline ticket prices could be advertised.
“Especially where you are in Orlando, this would be huge,” said Charlie Leocha, founder and chairman of the Washington-based Travelers United, a consumer advocacy organization.
Yet the bill faces staunch opposition, particularly from congressional Republicans, and is unlikely to pass in its current form, according to Leocha, whose organization had input on writing the bill.
A particular concern to Leocha is family seating, where airlines charge an extra fee to ensure families can sit together, including making sure children can sit near parents or guardians. Leocha pointed to a 2018 study by the FBI that showed sexual assaults of minors on planes were increasing.
Biden called out that fee specifically, saying the legislation would “prohibit airlines from charging $50 roundtrip to a family just to be able to sit together.”
“It can cost a hell of a lot more than that,” Leocha said. He said that making seating upgrades to domestic tickets can wind up costing more than $400.
In an email to the Orlando Sentinel, Hannah Walden, spokeswoman for airline lobbying group Airlines for America, said members of her organization already disclose the fees that the bill would address, and that member airlines do not charge family seating fees.
Airlines for America represents Delta, United Airlines, Southwest and others, but not Spirit Airlines, Frontier Airlines or Allegiant Air, three of the largest discount airlines in the country.
Leocha, who founded his organization in 2009 and helped craft the Department of Transportation’s Full Fare Advertising rule for airlines in 2012, said he has also long been an opponent of “resort fees,” which he says hotels use to inflate prices. He said it was a surprise to hear the president call them out.
“Finally, we got the words ‘resort fees’ into the State of the Union address,” he said.
On its website, the White House argues that these fees unfairly harm businesses that are upfront about their costs by making them appear more expensive than competitors who hide such costs.
In a statement on its website, the American Hotel & Lodging Association defended resort and hotel fees while promising to work with the Biden administration for greater transparency regarding them.
“These fees provide guests with value and include various unique goods and services at each property that charges them,” the statement said. “It is crucial that the same standards for fee display apply across the lodging booking ecosystem, including for hotels, as well as online travel agencies, metasearch sites, and short-term rental platforms.”
Republicans seem unlikely to let the bill through the Senate, where it would require 60 votes to pass without a filibuster. In September, every Republican member of the Senate Banking Committee signed a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, supporting overdraft and other fees charged by banks, another industry that would be affected by the legislation.
The bill would also affect concert and event ticket fees from major sellers such as Ticketmaster, which has been the target of criticism for high service charges since the band Pearl Jam took them on in 1995.
Leocha says the bill has little chance of passage and argues that it should be split into separate measures that attack individual fees rather than an omnibus bill that attempts to eliminate all of them.
“The good news is that it’s being talked about in the Senate and at the presidential level,” he said. “That’s a giant move in terms of political movement.”
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