Binyamin Dissen wrote:

Go to spirit.com and you get a banner ad

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Thanks to the U.S. Department of Transportation's latest fare
rules, Spirit must now HIDE the government's taxes and fees in
your fares.
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Nothing prevents Spirit from showing the breakdown of the fare. They
can no longer hide the total fare.

Yea, a co-worker of mine got the same message from Spirit via e-mail.

It's a crock of **** for Spirit to complain about having to show the
TOTAL ticket price up front (in their advertizing or at the initial
selection of an itinerary) instead of showing the total only on the
final screen.

It's a crock of **** because they NEVER went out of their way IN THE
PAST to SHOW THE CONSUMER what these taxes and fees were at any other
point of contact with the consumer other than on the final PURCHASE NOW
screen.

So I can't see why they're claiming that the new rules amount to
"hiding" these fees and taxes. They're just as "visible" as they were
before - as in how their detailed listing still exists in the only place
it has ever existed - on the final screen.

And even then - they still don't show the breakout of the 7.5% federal
excise tax from the base fare.

Just for the hell of it, I was pricing a ticket from Detroit to Orlando
(return).

The base fare was $414, their fuel surcharge was $85, and what they
claim as other gov't fees and taxes was $55 for a total of $555. The
base fare of $414 seems to include the 7.5% federal excise tax - because
this tax is not broken out in the $55 list.

I went to Delta to look at the price for a similar flight and again they
broke out the "base fare + tax" as a single line-item.

The whole airline industry (or should I say - the customers) are being
****ed-over with all these gov't fees and taxes. And after paying all
that - we get to lose our constitutional rights to privacy, liberty, due
process and anonymity when we fly.