Sri Lanka’s Leader Plays Seinfeld With His Country’s Airline and Why the FAIR FEES Act Will Raise Fares

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About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. And who proposes such silly, anti-consumer regulations? Oh it must be Trump and those evil Republicans, right? Nope!

  2. Everyone flies — including congressmen — so everyone thinks they’re an expert on the airline industry. The points made in the Free Skies video are correct: regulating fees will drive up the cost of travel, dramatically hurt the ultra low cost carriers, and probably increase the profitability of the legacy carriers.

    If you wanted to be a contrarian, though, it’s theoretically possible that this legislation would increase the happiness of the people who still will fly. Yes, fewer trips would likely be taken, but the folks who still fly will likely enjoy their experiences a bit more. Sure, they will “overpay” for their transportation — and many of them will get services that they don’t really “need” — but they might like not being nickeled and dimed. Of course, there could still be unintended consequences that would make the experience worse. Like instead of high change fees, the airlines would likely make most fares completely non-refundable.

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