I don't think they're paying taxes at the time the ticket is purchased. I'm very sure they're not paying taxes on cancelled flights, as long as they're refunding the principle.

How often do you think airlines are filing taxes?

I am responding to this:

> The refunds must include all government-imposed taxes and fees and airline-imposed fees, regardless of whether the taxes or fees are refundable to airlines.

This is the provision I am responding to. If the airlines must refund the full value to the consumer, I do not see why the government should not also be refunding the airlines.

And I strongly contest the idea that any delay is a problem the airline themselves created. In fact, I believe the assertion is absolutely dead wrong. There are many externalities to on-time arrivals and departures that airlines cannot control. How could it possibly be an airline's fault if an airport hasn't cleared its runways of ice, or if a tornado is within 5 miles of the landing strip?

Of course I also believe airlines will disingenously attribute delayed departures to these externalities if able to, even if they are actually at fault, so I'm not sure what the "right" solution is here.

I don't think saying "They collected payment for a service they then did not provide" is necessarily blaming them, it's just saying that if you collect money for something they customer does not receive you have no grounds to hold on to the money.

> A delay is them not doing their job right, as promised.

This is the comment from the OP that motivated me to comment. I think that is a definitively incorrect conclusion.

I am willing to bet that their risk and pricing departments have accounted to losing some percentage of revenue in refunds to delays. Then they decided over time to start making it harder to refund customers, and then they started accounting for the perfentage of customers that actually fight for their rights, and maybe it's 10% of all affected customers. So they decided to account for the other 90% of suckers, as actual revenue, so that now if you threaten it, they will cry that you're going after their already low profits.

All of these costs should be part of doing business. You do not keep a dime form customers if they did not receive service, even if by an act of God.

If your business fails, then it failed. If others succeeded, then they were better then you or you got unlucky, and it's no one's job to make you lucky.

How often do you see businesses screwing over customers just because they can? You arrive late to a flight due to unforeseen circumstances, and the airline will not refund you, no matter what you do. Why should you accept this from them?

I feel very strongly about this because I have experienced how predatory these companies are. Last time I was on vacation, there was a natural disaster, and I could have let them keep my money just to support them. But after I landed there (having paid for the stay in full), I was presented with a resort fee of close to $500. They know I had nowhere else to go, so they took advantage. Well, it felt really great clawing all that money back after spending 2 days there. This feeling, they feel this every day when screwing customers.

What if those taxes and fees pay for ATC which helped get a diverted flight to an alternate airport? Or for all the navigational aids along the way?

> How could it possibly be an airline's fault if an airport hasn't cleared its runways of ice?

They've failed to manage supplier risk.

I’m with you. Telling airlines they need to refund due to weather or bad mechanics just invites them to take more risks.

> I think the government should refund the airlines the government taxes/fees for canceled/delayed flights due to weather or mechanical issues at least.

It's my understanding that taxes aren't collected until well after the flight (service) has been fulfilled, and cannot be collected when it has not.