After getting airlines to pay hundreds of millions in refunds and enforcing customer rights, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is feeling good about what his department is doing for the traveling public.
Buttigieg took to social media just after the Thanksgiving travel weekend to described what he called "good progress."
"Good progress is showing as we engage airlines to reduce delays and cancellations for air travelers - and we will continue to enforce passengers' rights when disruptions do occur," Buttigieg said in a Nov. 30 Facebook post.
The U.S. Department of Transportation issued an Air Travel Consumer Report Dec. 2 that found consumer complaints in September were down 15.6% compared to the previous month but still remains almost four times higher than before the pandemic.
DOT established a new Airline Customer Service Dashboard last summer to help passengers determine what rights they have when a flight is canceled. Nine airlines now guarantee meals and nine hotels in the event of a cancellation.
In Mid-November, DOT announced it responded to an influx of consumer complaints about delayed refunds since the beginning of the pandemic and announced historic enforcement actions against six airlines. The airlines were fined more than $7.25 million and required to pay more $600 million in customer refunds.
DOT also issued a proposed rule on airline ticket refunds that would require airlines to proactively inform passengers of their rights to a refund when flight is canceled or significantly changed and clearly define when a consumer is entitled to a refund, according to the consumer report. The proposed rule also would require airlines provide non-expiring vouchers or travel credits to passengers unable to travel because they have COVID-19 or other communicable diseases.
The proposed rule would require airlines that receive significant government pandemic assistance issue refunds instead of non-expiring travel credits or vouchers when passengers can't travel because of a serious communicable disease, according to the consumer report.
