Tag Archives for department of transportation.
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.
DOT should certainly enforce refunds for services charged but not provided. But they shouldn’t lock airlines and airfare search sites into displaying specific charges in a standardized way, the same everywhere. We should be encouraging competition in meeting consumer needs, not making airline sites and Expedia displays the same forever. It’s not only seat and bag fees that matter – and even those don’t always matter!
With the whole world talking about the President’s debate performance Thursday night, whether he should still be running, and whether he’ll be replaced at the top of the ticket the campaign would very much like a return to normal discourse. So they’re back to talking about middle class pocket book issues. And nobody ever loses points beating up on airlines.
The Biden administration broke up the JetBlue-American Airlines partnership because they were concerned with competition in New York, and didn’t want competitors colluding. Or maybe they just wanted to make sure there wasn’t a third viable competitor to take on Delta?
Because it sure seems that the administration is more interested in keeping competition out of New York than ensuring it.
Under new DOT requirements, airlines and ticket agents will have to fully disclose all fees for baggage, changes, and cancellations upfront at first instance of displaying itineraries and fares. Airlines will also have to automatically and promptly refund passengers in cash or their original payment method when services like checked baggage and Wi-Fi are not delivered as promised.
I personally don’t see a problem with leaving it up to the customer to request a refund. That’s how every other product in the world works – if you want a refund, you ask for one. I’m not sure why we should be treating airline passengers differently, especially given the complexity, and writing this into law. But people get frustrated with airlines, and politicians don’t like siding with them in an election year.
It does seem highly misleading to suggest that this language is ‘buried’ in the ‘new bill’ when it’s there in order to guarantee refund rights, as requested by the administration, and has been there in the Senate language for at least two and a half months.
The House and Senate both passed FAA reauthorization bills. That left a committee from both chambers to decide what actually went into the bill that heads back for a vote. What’s in the final bill coming out of conference is probably what gets passed and signed by the President. This is what’s really inside.
When bad weather rolls in, or your flight gets cancelled due to lack of crew or a mechanical problem, it can be tough to get rebooked. Planes are full these days. Everyone on your flight needs another seat, and there may not be enough to go around. Airlines will frequently tell you that nothing is available. But what does that even mean?
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 »
