“All-in” air fares made mandatory to exhibit for the airlines

Surprised that the cheap ticket fares that you saw in advertisements are actually not so! Well, if you are flying on Canadian airlines then you will not be surprised anymore. The airlines regulators have made it mandatory for the airlines to exhibit the actual prices of tickets on all types of advertisements such as print advertising, billboards and the online advertisements. Earlier, it was quite a common practice, and is still so in many other industries and countries of the world, to have different prices of flight booking on the marketing materials than the actual costs for the sake of attracting the customers. There was the invariable sign of some special character on the advertised prices which indicated that the prices is subject to certain conditions and might include or exclude a number of other charges.

Ottawa has begun this process of change since the marketing materials will now feature the prices which the customers will actually have to pay if they book the supposedly cheap international flights to destinations. The ticket prices exhibited will now include all the taxes, fees and other charges such as airport development fee, etc. so as to enable the customers to know which airlines is offering what all prices upfront without having to run through the process of flight booking to find the true prices.

The move will usher in more transparency in the advertisements and will prevent people being taken to a ride by the airlines or the agencies. It often used to happen that the customers got to realize at the fag-end of their flight booking exercise that there are more charges to be paid for. This left them with two options, either to abandon the online booking at that site or to pay the price for completing the booking, though with a bad taste.