Biden would like airlines to pay passengers for flights that are hit by delays

Who Gets What, When, And When? When Airlines Cancel, Refund and Delay: The Case Of Airline Choice in the United States and the EU

Flying sucks. It’s hard to picture climbing into a metal tube and being whisked across the country in a plane at hundreds of miles per hour. The experience is not good, but is getting worse over time.

The question of who should pay for airfare when things go awry has been lingering in the air for a while now. The airlines are the obvious choice, but the major carriers have refused to pay for passengers’ own accommodations when flights are delayed or canceled. That way of doing things may be ending.

The cancellation rate was 2% in the year 2022, meaning that 181,289 flights were canceled. There were 1,376,798 arrival delays in 2022, a rate of 20.46 percent of flights.

The Transportation Department expanded its online Airline Customer Service Dashboard, which tracks each airline’s policies on refunds and compensation when flights are canceled or delayed.

As to the question of who gets what, how much, and when, a lot will come down to how the department defines “controllable cancellation and delay.” The definition will be in the official rulemaking when it comes out eventually, but the overall purpose is to force the airlines to improve their on-time performance figures.

Biden pointed out that no airline in the US gives cash compensation in addition to refunds or amenities. Airlines are only required to pay back the cost of delayed flights if the government requires it.

Of course, the airline industry hates this idea and will be lobbying vigorously against it. Airlines for America, which represents most of the major carriers, told Reuters that US airlines “have no incentive to delay or cancel a flight and do everything in their control to ensure flights depart and arrive on time, but safety is always the top priority.”

The Biden administration has been trying to reform air travel since getting lambasted for recent flight meltdowns. Airlines could be compelled to reimburse passengers for services that weren’t provided under a proposal introduced last month.

After the flight disruptions of the winter, the Biden administration is trying to come up with a new set of regulations that will help passengers.

According to the White House, policies requiring this sort of compensation exist in Canada and the European Union, and one study shows that the regulations lead to less flight delays in the EU.

Amen. Senator Andrew Watterson, Chairman of the Joint Committee on Rulesmaking, Reply to Biden, Buttigieg, and Biden

The start of the rulemaking process was announced on Monday by President Biden and Pete Buttigieg.

In an interview on Monday with NPR’s All Things Considered, Buttigieg said that the compensation offered by airlines, like mile points, often is insufficient.

“Passengers might not know that could only be worth maybe $10 or $20 when in fact, they’re entitled to hundreds,” he said. We want to make it simpler. We don’t want to see you fighting for it.

Southwest Airlines is working hard to reimburse customers for their extra expenses, such as hotels and meals, when they’re not flying, said Andrew Watterson during a Senate hearing in February.

I apologize to those who were disrupted. It caused a tremendous amount of anguish, inconvenience and missed opportunities for our customers and our employees,” Watterson said.

The airline company’s holiday travel debacle and Southwest’s flight schedules are both under investigation by the Transportation Department.