I love how the government is acting like it's sticking up for the little guy by "forcing" the airlines to show the real cost after taxes... What it will really show the public is how bad they get fleeced by the government taxes on air travel.
It's not the airlines we should be mad at here.
I disagree. I think there are two separate issues here.
Issue #1) So called 'taxes & fees' advertised by the airlines are essentially a number that they pull out of their ass. There is no real relation to the base fare.
They can manipulate this number at will, as littledan points out above, with arbitrary numbers like 'fuel surcharges'. Air Canada often drops the price of a base fare, increases the 'fuel surcharge' and then advertises a 'sale' (displaying only the base fare of course).
A charter company can advertise a $200 fare to Cuba (but has $400 in 'taxes & fees') while the exact same route is advertised by Westjet for $300 (+$300 in taxes/fees).
The end result is the same, a $600 bill, but the consumer is confused because the only price they see (unless they go through the aggravating process of going all the way to the final checkout page!) is $200 and $300, not $600 and $600.
Unlike buying any other product in the world, the 'after tax' price has *no* relation to the 'before tax' price. It would be like buying a TV at Future Shop for $500, and ending up with a $525 bill and then buying the same TV at Best Buy for $500 and ending up with a $600 bill.
Would that make sense? Of course not. If it were truly a 'tax' the final price would have a mathematical relationship to the advertised price of $500 and would always be 5% more, or $525.
There is no mathematical relationship between the advertised price and the final bill in the world of travel, and this is the source of frustration for the consumer. Europe fixed it, the U.S. fixed, and now we will too, we're just the last to do it.
As for Issue #2, which is that the taxes & fees imposed by the government on our airlines is too high, and that they disallow foreign competition, that's a completely separate issue in my opinion.
If an airline or travel agency wants the public to realize that the final price is high because of taxes imposed by our government, and show them the breakdown of costs, let them do that at checkout, not by confusing the consumer with misleading prices at the start of the buying process.
I used to have a travel thread on Beyond. I used to be somebody.