Airlines need to take responsibility

On April 24, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced a number of consumer protection rules, including ones that protect passengers from hidden airline fees and require airlines to automatically issue cash refunds for unpaid flights. .

“This is the latest step, actually two steps, in the Department of Transportation’s ongoing effort to expand passenger rights under the leadership of President Biden, the largest in Department of Transportation history,” Buttigieg said. “It will be.”

This measure does at least acknowledge the suffering of many passengers, but is it enough?

Buttigieg noted that he often hears stories of passengers not receiving the refunds they owe or being offered compensation in the form of vouchers or miles rather than cash. Also, many people are so indifferent about their rights that they accept what is given to them.

Therefore, the introduced rules are certainly a step in the right direction. However, there is little doubt that North American passengers are not as well protected as they should be, especially when compared to European passengers.

On my last few flights, a two-hour flight was delayed for nearly six hours at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) due to an entirely internal issue. I recently had another delay on an international flight and then had to spend hours changing my connecting flight, only to be almost skipped from my original flight due to overbooking. After spending hours on the phone and multiple online chats with airlines, I’m sure I’ve gained more gray hair and shortened my lifespan.

The problem is that airlines lack accountability. They often overbook airline tickets in an attempt to flatter their profit margins. Additionally, airlines may cancel flights due to “technical issues” or “weather” when in reality they simply want to reduce the number of flights with low bookings and transfer passengers to the next flight. It happened regularly on the route between Toronto and New York.

Airlines were not affected.

For my flight through LAX, I was given less than $20 in air points for all the trouble.

But why offer more when there is no law requiring them to do so? Under current law, airlines are only required to issue refunds if the flight itself is canceled and the passenger is separated. Only if you do not rebook your flight.

In the European Union (EU), a regulation known as EU261 requires airlines to compensate travelers not only for cancellations, but also for denied boarding and delays of two hours or more. Excluding delays due to weather or other “special” circumstances, the passenger is entitled to compensation of between 250 and 600 euros depending on the length of the flight and the delay. This measure will encourage airlines to properly schedule departures and maintain their aircraft.

This regulation is not perfect, it can have a negative impact on airlines, and there is debate as to whether it truly helps on-time arrivals, but alternatives need to be considered that take both airlines and customers into full consideration. there is.

Many people will say that if you are dissatisfied with the performance of one airline, why not just fly another airline? The problem is that they all have some monopoly on the sky. There are only a limited number of airlines, many of which are codeshare anyway, and eventually the “good” airlines are running out of alternatives. These days, there isn’t enough competition between airlines to try to attract customers based on competitive factors other than price.

Not just any company can start flying routes, and consumers have access to endless options. Some might describe this situation as “cartel-like.” Large companies will quickly crush new entrants. Therefore, if you want to move from point A to B, the number of choices is quite limited.

At the same time, I sympathize with the fact that airline profit margins are low, averaging only around 2.7%. However, low profit margins don’t tell the whole story. The airline industry’s net income is expected to reach $25.7 billion in 2024.

This is also an industry with many risks, with rising fuel costs, wars, and pandemics all having a serious impact. But that doesn’t mean these airlines can escape their responsibility to passengers. In addition to delays, there are various cuts being made, from proper cleaning of rooms to terribly poor customer service. It took him over 6 months to get a response from the airline regarding a complaint I filed last year. And if something goes wrong with your flight, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to contact anyone.

I’ve also been in situations where my luggage flew without me, I missed a connection because of the airline, and I had to pay for a night’s hotel myself. There are many other experiences like this, and I’m clearly not the only one who has gone through it.

We cannot continue to be at the mercy of an aviation dictatorship that answers to no one. While we may not want to copy EU regulations exactly, when we weigh passenger concerns against airline concerns, North American consumers receive far greater protection than U.S. consumers. It is clear that it should. Currently exists.

Katherine Brodsky is a commentator and author who has contributed to publications such as: newsweek, variety, wired, washington post, guardian, esquire, CNN, vulture, playboy, Independent, mashableand more, covering a wide range of topics from culture to technology to espionage.she tweets with x @mysteriouskat And I write random essays on Substack:katherinebrodsky.substack.com. Recently she published her first book. Make No Apologies: How to Find and Release Your Voice in Times of Anger—Lessons for the Silent Majoritycurrently available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other book retailers.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.