The Trump administration announced today that it is withdrawing the Biden administration’s plan to require cash compensation from airlines for flight delays. They signaled in September that they were planning to do this. And literally no one was surprised.
This rule was never going to happen. It was probably not going to happen even if Biden had been re-elected. The Biden administration waited until after he had lost re-election to seek comment on how a rule ought to be drafted.
- They never even issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, to begin the comment period and consideration of whether to impose a rule.
- Even a year and a half after the President had announced plans for a rule they had not done it. All they issued was an ‘Advance’ notice of proposed rulemaking; a public announcement that they wanted to draft a rule and could anyone tell them what it ought to look like?
- And the administration likely believed they didn’t have the authority to implement anyway, which is why they sent legislation to Congress to authorize it.
This was supposed to be an ‘EU261’-style rule requiring payments for delays. But it was even more than that – potentially requiring airlines to interline with each other (a significant expense for low cost carriers), and standards of care (like hotel) during significant weather events.
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby argued this compensation creates a bad incentives for airlines to be cautious and take delays or cancel flights for safety – so compensation compromises safety. While that’s the obvious incentive created, this hasn’t happened in the EU but airlines there often ignore the rule.
The rule would have represented a significant shift in power to consumers and a huge expense to airlines. It would have given pilot and mechanics unions tremendous power – because their members exercise discretion that can delay flights for small details, which could have cost tens of thousands of dollars per flight.
Another concern was higher airfares. One way to think of this is the government requiring consumers to buy ‘delay insurance’ with every ticket. Right now consumers travel without this coverage, and it does not come free. Under the rule, it would have been required.
Of course, the way you actually reduce delays experienced by passengers is to alleviate bottlenecks: more gates, runways and taxiways at congested airports; more air traffic controllers; better technology (and management) for the air traffic control system.
So the airlines will continue to RAM US WITHOUT LUBE, while they fly in their private jets without worry
Good, it makes me happy when Trump rolls back democrat nonsense. It took almost 20 years but we finally killed obamacare.
This is not a partisan issue, unless harming consumers is a Republican priority. Someone really should have advised #47 to keep these rules and expand upon them to actually help people.
We deserve actual air passenger rights legislation in the USA; it should be bi-partisan. Republicans, Democrats, and non-affiliated Americans travel on airlines. When the airlines are at fault for significant delays and cancellations, we should we compensated, like they already do in the UK, EU, Canada, Mexico, Thailand, India, and elsewhere.
This is not about traditional carriers vs. LCCs vs. ULCC, and it doesn’t bankrupt airlines; see Ryanair in the EU; profitable, under EU261, and still offering dirt-cheap fares. It doesn’t cost us more, in fact, it provides the right incentives for airlines to be timely and more reliable, ultimately making them more profitable.
Supplemental travel insurance is a good idea, in general, but it is not enough (terms are often too strict, requiring excessive delays, like 72 hours or 50% of the trip, read that fine print).
Why not establish Rule 204 again? That was pretty cut and dried. Force majeure was exempt but if the airline’s fault…they pay! A diversion for passenger issues is a force majeure. Weather, airport closures, etc. are force majeure. Airplane without flight or cabin crews…NOT force majeure.
If Biden really wanted to protect airline passengers, then he shouldn’t have waited till the last four weeks of a four year term to make some noise about it. This is just plain pure dirty, manipulative politics. It also shows that the country does not have any party that gives a damn about passengers.
@Win Whitmire — Did you mean, Rule 240? The old airline regulation that required airlines to rebook passengers on a competing airline if the original airline caused a delay and couldn’t get them to their destination faster. It was replaced by each airline’s own contract of carriage after deregulation. Obviously, those contracts of carriage are incredibly restrictive to us passengers. So, yeah, please, let’s do Rule 240, again, too. It’s fair, reasonable, and effective.
@ Walter Barry – Unfortunately, Obamacare has not been killed. Not yet, anyway. The ACA sadly remains in effect. Some of the premium-subsidy enhancements added during the pandemic are set to expire, and Republicans rightly pushed to let them expire. But given how unhinged the Dems continue to become in Congress, we will eventually get there. It’s just a matter of time.
@Mike Hunt — And, it seems, to replace it with nothing; so, just private insurance (if you can afford it), or, go bankrupt with medical debt via the emergency room, or die. Or, is a plan coming out ‘in two more weeks’?’
Would you at least endorse air passenger rights legislation that includes compensation for passengers when the airlines are at fault? Or are you that anti-consumer… like, I thought you fly commercial and ‘work for a living,’ you must get delayed and canceled-on occasionally. It’s really not a left vs. right or blue vs. red issue.
@Mike Hunt — So, I went ahead and looked up Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025’s section on the ACA, so the administration’s actual plan appears to be to dismantle key consumer protections, particularly for non-subsidized plans, and to promote ‘junk’ plans that may charge more for pre-existing conditions and not cover all essential care. Additionally, caps on Medicaid as well. Ironically, it disproportionately negatively affects red states. That seems like a horrible idea for a lot of Americans who need healthcare. Why do you guys so often seek to harm your own constituents?
@Walter Barry — Why are you against the Affordable Care Act? Other than it having that former President’s name in the colloquial name for it.
So now airlines will be free to massively overbook flights so they can ensure 100% load factor, and for those with confirmed tickets but no seats left… a big F*** YOU, no compensation owed.
But remember, if you’re on an international flight that starts or ends in the E.U., even on an American carrier, EU-261 will still apply!
Some (actually many) people are simply happy that millions of people won’t have accessibility to affordable healthcare – how selfish, pathetic and sad. That being said, people voted for this nonsense so this is what they deserve I guess.
Personally, I don’t care if its’ Democrats or Republicans or both who pass legislation on affordable health care for people. It should actually be a bipartisan thing anyway.
Problem with Republicans is that they are simply lying, they have NO health plan, even after fifteen YEARS!
@1990 – Twat? I cu*t hear you. Run along Ruprecht, the adults are trying to communicate.
Passenger protections? – In America?. You made me spit out my coffee.
As far as Kirby goes, the man is either a pathological liar or deeply delusional so I’m not sure that listing him as a source provides any credibility. As you noted, EC261, while not going far enough, does provide reasonable passenger protections. We desperately need a stronger version of those protections here.
Some will suggest that EC261 makes for higher airfares. The only problem is that the airfares aren’t high, which shoots that premise down. Right now the airlines have all the power and consumers nothing. That needs to change.
@1990 – Props to you for trying but apparently trying to help hard working Americans who’ve followed the rules and done their country right don’t deserve not to go bankrupt because they get sick. Your political opponents apparently want working people to go broke from medical bills because they sure don’t offer any alternatives. I’ve had family die in poverty because of such situations and I don’t wish it on others.
@1990 – LOL… how many fake user names are you going to come up with? Shameless. But that’s what you and your people do. If you can’t make it on merit, fake it!
Good riddance!
“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” Robert Heinlein
@Bbt — I genuinely care about this issue (US-261!), regardless of partisanship; so, I agree, the timing was suspect, because they did know better.
(And, healthcare is kind of a decent analogy because Democrats in 2010 knew, or should have known, that a single-payer, public-option, universal healthcare program would have been better for the American people, overall, than an insurance-based system, which funnels way too much money and power to unnecessary middlemen, but, at the time, they ‘played it safe,’ tried to appease Republicans, who didn’t want any program at all, which, in retrospect, was a huge mistake; by 2025, it’s clear, Bernie is right; Medicare for All, basically what Congress receives for themselves, is the solution. Others, may disagree, but it’s more cost-effective and delivers baseline care to the most amount of people, which is the goal; those who want to pay extra for special treatment still can. And, generally, we should be funding, training, hiring, and investing in more healthcare because it is essential.)
So, as with air passenger rights legislation, there’s a clear solution (actually pass something that helps the traveling public, because, otherwise airlines have too much power to abuse them, and they have with significant delays and cancellations under the airlines’ control), yet, the airline lobbyists pay both parties to never actually get it done. I’m still hopeful that someday, the people will finally realize there’s a better way, and it’s not about their ‘team’ vs. the other guys, and our elected representatives actually serve us, not special interests, and pass something that works better for nearly everyone.
@Steve_YYZ — It’s incredibly upsetting to have such common sense rules be discarded for spite (basically, the other guy did this, so we have to cancel it!) *deep sigh* I will say, it’s not perfect, but at least Canada is still trying; your APPR (air passenger protection rules) are a good equivalent to EU-261. When folks have good ideas, we should try to copy and implement them, too. Thank you for expressing your thoughts here.
@Christian — “Right now the airlines have all the power and consumers nothing. That needs to change.” 100%. Thank you. Anyone who actually flies commercial knows this. Like, supporters of this administration also get screwed by the lack of consumer protections here. We deserve better.
@Mike Hunt — Did you have a response on the merits, on air passenger rights, or healthcare? Perhaps, your lack of a well-reasoned counter-argument here more telling…
And, let’s be clear: I do not use other aliases. Period. I stick to ‘1990’ on this and the other blogs. @Christian is a regular here. I’ve seen @Bbt before. Not sure about @Steve_YYZ, but, there was a @Steve M. from Toronto who comments (maybe he changed it up).
@Mike P — We get it, Mike. You hate paying taxes. But, it’s not realistic for us all to act as ‘sovereign citizens’ like you.
And, Heinlein correctly predicted the risks of radiation, but his economic misadventures are not his strong suit.
“But remember, if you’re on an international flight that starts or ends in the E.U., even on an American carrier, EU-261 will still apply!” It is my understanding that US to Europe flights come under EU261 if the carrier is from the E.U., but not for US carriers. EU 261 applies in all EU to US flights.
@This comes to mind — Correct, US carrier, US-to-EU flight, not covered, which is why we need legislation here.