Ticket agents fined for violating disclosure rules

When travel agents sell an airline ticket, they are required by federal policy to disclose the airline you will be flying.

So far this year, the U.S. Department of Transportation has issued six fines, totaling $430,000, to travel agencies that have violated the federal disclosure rules.

The latest fines were announced Tuesday against Carson Wagonlit Travel ($125,000) and Frosch International Travel ($65,000). Both companies were fined for selling airline tickets without disclosing the true identity of the airline operating the flights.

The tickets were marketed by one airline but the flights were operated by a partner airline, under a so-called code-share agreement.

“No one wants to arrive to their gate and learn for the first time that the airline they thought was operating their flight actually sold them a ticket for another airline,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement.

Federal investigators uncovered the violations by calling several agents in January and February about booking flights. During the calls, the agents failed to disclose that the flights were being operated by a code-share partner.

In consent agreements, both travel agencies said they have instructed their employees to abide by the federal disclosure rules.

[Updated, 5:15 p.m. Oct. 22: Carson Wagonlit released a statement saying the company “has worked closely with the DOT to implement protocol to insure this will not happen again.”

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