Like many fellow travelers I know, we seek a fine balance of when our respective governments should be involved in our travel. For instance, some will say that they wish for governments to establish a basic set of passenger rights, while others will trump that let free enterprise rule passenger rights and only those airlines that covet and respect the passenger will eventually win out. The problem with that line of thought is that winning out can take decades of abuse of the basic passenger before an airline fails, leaving scores of innocent traveling minds left adrift. But, how does a private enterprise such as an airline become a public transit system? I’m not sure I know that answer, but recently reading that The European Parliament, concerned that many airlines are misleading passengers and that people end up paying a lot more for travel because of the extra fees that travelers haven’t been made properly aware of, agreed to ban airlines from marketing fares that do not include the taxes and surcharges that these travelers have to pay. While the airlines have until the end of the year to get in line with this change, it does seem that countries such as the U.S. and its dodgy approach to fair pricing of products like air travel again continues to slip behind in any leadership to this growing problem. We as travelers are getting a bit fed up with this practice and all we’ve ever asked for is “what will this trip cost us to travel?” Seems reasonable wouldn’t you say? But unfortunately it continues to fall on deaf ears in that country’s Congress. It takes more than one person to say, “I’m mad as hell and not going to take this anymore…”