Notice to Industry on the All-inclusive Air Price Advertising Regulations

Purpose

This notice is intended to inform the advertisers of air services (advertisers) of the updated approach the Canadian Transportation Agency (Agency) is adopting to enforce the All-Inclusive Air Price Advertising regulations.

Background

The regulations that enable consumers to easily determine the total advertised air price and promote fair competition between all advertisers in the air travel industry came into force on December 18, 2012. The Agency has since been using a proactive and collaborative educational approach to ensure that advertisers are aware of their responsibility to comply. The Agency also reached out to associations representing the air travel industry as well as provincial associations dealing with travel agencies to help them understand their obligations and provide guidance on all aspects of the new regulatory requirements.

During the first five months from the coming into force of the new regulations the Agency worked with advertisers, and issued a number of formal warnings and gave a reasonable time period to those who were not compliant to amend their website, on-line reservation systems and other applications to achieve compliance. Based on our monitoring and enforcement actions to date, we have found that all advertisers of air services in Canada that have been subject to verification by the Agency now display the all-inclusive price, complying with the fundamental requirement of the new regulations.

Agency's updated enforcement approach

The Agency now expects all advertisers to comply with the fundamental requirement of the regulations to display the full price (paragraph 135.8 (1) (a)). All advertisers are expected to display the air services price in an all-inclusive format regardless of media used to advertise. The Agency will now apply a stricter approach to the enforcement of the all-inclusive price requirement. Furthermore, those advertisers that are now compliant are expected to remain compliant.

The Agency is continuing to work with advertisers to bring them in compliance with the other requirements of the regulations which, for many, pose further technical challenges, mainly the requirement to disclose the name and amount of individual charges and taxes. The Agency also expects all advertisers to fully cooperate.