U.S. airlines are suing to block the Biden administration from requiring greater transparency over fees that the carriers charge their passengers, saying that a new rule would confuse consumers by giving them too much information during the ticket-buying process.
The U.S. Transportation Department said Monday it will vigorously defend the ruleagainst what it called “hidden junk fees.”
American, Delta, United and three other carriers, along with their industry trade group, sued the Transportation Department in a federal appeals court on Friday, asking the court to overturn the rule.
I think that they could do it in the US without trouble as long as it’s a brick-and-mortar retailer and someone is buying in person, but it’s also fair to point out that US sales taxes are considerably lower then VAT in Europe, so it’s less of a factor.
For online stuff, they’d have to know location in order to provide a post-tax price, since the state of the purchaser is a factor. I don’t want to have to hand out my location while anonymously browsing online retailers, so I’d rather not have them give a post-tax price (or at least have the option to browse with pre-tax prices).
Or they advertise a price and then make a slightly different amount per city and so on. That’s how it is done sometimes for stuff sold in multiple European countries for the same price.