Tag Archives for department of transportation.
By law, flights to and from Washington’s close-in National airport are limited to 1,250 miles, except for a handful of trips created by Congress and handed out by the Department of Transportation.
DOT finalized its award of new ‘beyond-perimeter’ slots at Washington’s National airport, granting flights to American, Delta, United, Southwest, and Alaska. But their process for doing this was probably illegal.
A year and a half ago President Biden announced new rules coming to require airlines to pay cash compensation for flight delays and cancellations. Think of it as the U.S.’s answer to Europe’s ‘EU261’ compensation.
They didn’t actually do anything with this while they still could. Their new proposal isn’t yet fully baked, and likely won’t advance farther.
President-elect Donald Trump will nominate former Congressman and current Fox personality Sean Duffy as Secretary of Transportation.
A year and a half ago President Biden announced new rules coming to require airlines to pay cash compensation for flight delays and cancellations. Think of it as the U.S.’s answer to Europe’s ‘EU261’ compensation.
The U.S. Departments of Justice and Transportation have launched a wide-ranging probe of consolidation and anti-competitive conduct in air travel. What they will come to learn is that the federal government has fostered consolidation, and has made it nearly impossible to have competition in aviation as a matter of policy for decades.
In the legislative fight over five-year reauthorization for the FAA, airlines and other interests had a Christmas tree of of wish lists items they worked hard to get. It’s a $105 billion bill that more than doubles subsidies for small community air service, and makes it harder to track private planes belonging to wealthy individuals. Among many other things, in a victory for Delta over United (which operates a competing hub at Washington Dulles airport) it included 5 new “beyond-perimeter” slot pairs at Washington National airport, that permit flights farther than 1,250 miles. The authors of the bill didn’t just say there could be more flying, and to destinations currently reserved for Dulles airport, they outlined who should get those flights. They had to go to existing big airlines, and couldn’t be given to new…
Delta’s President views SkyMiles as a ‘giveaway program’ rather than something his customers invest in and can expect a return from. So it’s no surprise that Delta can charge more than 4 times as many miles for the same Delta seat that their partners will charge to their own customers. The Vice President running SkyMiles even admits they’re not trying to compete over offering value to customers.
If passengers are getting delayed, cancelled, and diverted – and if their bags are lost, or they’re turned away from flying completely despite having a ticket – it’s probably happening on American Airlines, according to Department of Transportation data.
With DOT still to approve the deal, the opportunity for parties to get their wish lists in appears to be now. Approval so far has been helped by Hawaii’s supportive politicians. In exchange, Alaska has offered promises about what their stewardship of the brand and its routes will look like. It seems reasonable to expect some of those promises will be written into binding commitments by the federal government.
The Biden administration is initiating a rulemaking to require that airlines seat families with children age 13 and under together for free. Generally speaking they already do, under pressure earlier in the administration. In fact, DOT has a dashboard showing this and since it’s part of airline customer service plans it’s enforceable.
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 »
