Department of Transportation’s latest Air Travel Consumer Travel Report - covering the month of June - indicated just how angry air travelers have become. Those flight disruptions really escalated on Memorial Day weekend and continued through the summer, and the U.S. (and lots of other countries) has been terrible this year due to high levels of flight cancellations and delays, and some new data this week is showing just how frustrated air travelers have become - and how much flight disruptions are costing them. We’re going to have to wait to see how airlines handle these requests in practice, and what hoops customers will have to jump through to demonstrate that an airline was unable to provide accommodations when required in order to obtain a refund.”ĭOT started its pressure campaign because airline service in the U.S. But as DOT notes, “regardless of the cause of significant delays or cancellations, airlines are required to provide prompt refunds to ticketed passengers should a passenger choose not to accept the alternative offered such as rebooking on another flight.”Īlthough the airlines have now formalized these policies in their customer service plans, ’s Gary Leff puts them in perspective: “At the end of the day this is mostly saying they are going to do what they already do, but there is some consumer benefit at the margin to explicitly committing to reimbursement and to (in some cases) dollar amounts for meals based on an explicit threshold for delays. Remember, these policies apply only when the cancellation or delay is the airline’s fault - e.g., the crew has “timed out,” or the aircraft has a mechanical problem - but not when it’s caused by bad weather or air traffic control problems, although it might be difficult to prove the real cause of the flight disruption. Carriers were divided on whether they would rebook affected passengers on another airline at no additional cost: American, Delta, Hawaiian, JetBlue and United said they would, but not Alaska, Allegiant, Frontier, Southwest or Spirit.Ī line of travelers seen waiting for the security check at Cologne Bonn Airport in Cologne, Germany, on Sept.
CENTURION LOUNGE OHARE FREE
When a cancellation forces an overnight stay, only Allegiant and Frontier declined to guarantee free hotel accommodations. Now, nine of the 10 guarantee meals and eight of the 10 guarantee hotel accommodations when an airline issue causes the delay or cancellation.” The only carrier that didn’t promise to provide meal vouchers when a cancellation requires passengers to wait three or more hours for a new flight was Allegiant. For example, no airline unconditionally guaranteed meal vouchers or hotels prior to Secretary Buttigieg’s letter. airlines made significant changes to their plans to improve services provided to passengers when their flights are canceled or delayed because of an airline issue. This week, DOT reported, “all but one of the ten largest U.S. 1), and apparently the airlines were listening to the DOT Secretary’s demands. The new DOT “ dashboard” went live on Thursday (Sept. What kind of compensations are passengers entitled to when their flight is canceled or subject to a long delay due to something that is within the airline’s control? Last week, we reported on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s announcement of a new DOT online summary of carriers’ customer service policies, and his demand that airlines should commit to specific minimum compensations depending on the problem. routes United and Emirates hint at a partnership announcement this month Lufthansa’s mostly-Airbus fleet starts to add Boeing 787s and American Express temporarily shutters its SFO Centurion Lounge for construction.
In the latest air travel news, the Transportation Department launches its online “dashboard” of exactly what carriers will provide to passengers whose flights are canceled or delayed as airlines enhance those policies under government pressure latest data show a huge increase in passenger complaints to DOT as summer got underway new surveys indicate flyers are irate over flight disruptions and are unlikely to fly again on airlines that didn’t resolve their problems low-cost carriers flock to Phoenix with new service, and Alaska adds a new Anchorage route Lufthansa pilots stage a one-day walkout Emirates will add premium economy seating on its SFO route a new South Korean carrier is coming to Los Angeles and Germany’s Condor extends LAX flights through the winter Finnair, Delta and Avianca drop some U.S. A photograph taken on July 25, 2022, shows a plane flying near Mariposa, Calif.
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