Yesterday, the New York Times editorialized on the DOT’s potential relaxation of airfare advertising regulations.

The editorial builds on the recent article by Jeff Bailey and Christopher Elliott on the subject (and which I addressed here. This recent (uniformly negative) attention to the proposed regulation change will hopefully make the change less likely.

As the Global Traveller points out, the potential reversal in regulation is against a rising trend of consumer-friendly regulation on this issue. If Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland are making airfares more transparent, why is the United States making them less so? (Europe, though, lags behind on this issue.)

I went and re-read the original NYT article (subscription required, or quoted here) and found this line intriguing:

Southwest sees the proposed changes as a way to blunt apples-to-apples price comparisons.

Hypocrisy! Southwest’s business model is based in large part on making apples-to-apples comparisons with other airlines impossible! Southwest’s fares are not searchable on the global reservation systems, or on the major online booking sites, BECAUSE that would make the fares easier to compare. Southwest wants its customers to assume that its fares are the lowest, and to avoid comparison shopping. (JetBlue does this, too, though there is a workaround.)

While I applaud Southwest for countering the advance of fuel surcharges and other fees, they would be more credible if they actually allowed for real comparisons with other airlines.

Apples-to-apples comparisons are indeed desirable. But Southwest isn’t even in the produce aisle. So to speak.