Tag Archives for department of transportation.
The Department of Transportation just told airlines they can stop serving dozens of small-town airports as the shutdown drags on. A 47-year “temporary” subsidy program may finally unravel—leaving entire communities without air service overnight.
Atlanta’s airport just walked away from $57 million in federal funds after refusing Trump’s anti-DEI certification. The standoff exposes a four-decade-old legal framework now hanging by a thread.
The latest DOT Air Travel Consumer Report shows Delta avoided bumping passengers entirely, while American led the industry in cancellations, mishandled bags, denied boardings, and passenger complaints.
The Biden administration planned to require airlines to pay passengers for flight delays – a U.S. equivalent to Europe’s “EU261” as a shorthand. The Trump administration just killed that effort.
A customer tried to use their American Airlines systemwide upgrades 40 minutes to midnight on the day they expired – except the airline doesn’t specify in their terms and conditions what time zone midnight is. The upgrades, which were available for the customer to confirm, could not be used – because they’d already expired 80 minutes earlier.
New Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy reports that he’s spoken to Elon Musk’s DOGE team, and invited them to help fix U.S. aviation systems.
U.S. and foreign airlines are granted anti-trust immunity all the time to collude on schedules and pricing, jointly deciding who will fly where and how much they’ll charge. The power the Department of Transportation has to allow this comes from an unusual, historical place, and its use has exploded in recent years.
Airlines sued to stop the rule, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit issued an injunction suggesting that the carriers were likely to prevail on the merits, and suffer irreparable harm if the rules went into effect in the meantime. DOT itself estimates the cost to comply with the new rules in the hundreds of millions.
The court heard the case, and mostly sided with DOT but still sent the rule back for reconsideration because the agency failed to follow the Administrative Procedures Act is promulgating the final rule.
Ex-Reality TV star, Congressman, and Fox Business personality Sean Duffy was tapped to become Secretary of Transportation. He’s now a shoe-in for confirmation. Democrats, and even airline unions, are lining up to support him.
The real win here for DOT is getting JetBlue to agree to delay compensation, because that’s been something the Biden administration was unable to advance over the past four years (and is probably illegal to order as a regulation, with Congressional action). They want an EU261-style rule and haven’t gotten it, but this is something.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
