There are very few consumer experiences as miserable as air travel these days. It’s just a joke.
Plane not full enough to make a big enough profit? Cancel the flight. Reroute the flight. Delay the luggage. Force passenger to check hand luggage in. Charge for every single possible thing.
I abhor flying. It makes me hate myself.
Turkish Airlines delayed us 2 days which we had to spend in the shittiest hotel they could find for the first night and then in the airport itself for the second night (not even giving us lounge access). They’re arguing the delay was only 7 minutes (seriously) and won’t do anything at all. It’s been 9 months of battle involving lawyers and they still won’t pay anything.
This is a step in the right direction but airlines still have a long way to go.
It feels like they used the pandemic to “push the envelope” and see how much more abuse customers will take, and set this as their new standard service level. AFAIK they also never rehired all the people they laid off which partly explains the sharp drop in quality.
Or maybe this is exactly what the world needs given how polluting and damaging flying is, I just didn’t expect it would be the airlines themselves doing all they can to discourage people from flying.
Luckily, in Europe, you can still visit a lot of beautiful places by train without the aggravation of flying. And when accounting for door to door times, flying isn’t that much faster anyway.
JetBlue accepted the reservation for my 14 year old (the minimum age for JetBlue to take a minor as an adult). They were code sharing that flight with American, who requires a minor to be 15.
So, JetBlue took the money for a service they knew they could not provide (but I didn’t, having read the various airline rules and settled on JetBlue as a result). When it came time to fly, American wouldn’t carry them (now 700 miles away from the family) and JetBlue wanted to keep the money, offering a JB credit expiring in 1 year.
All I did was get a JetBlue customer care agent to confirm they would not issue a refund and took that screenshot to my credit card company who approved the chargeback.
We ended up having to pay the unaccompanied minor fees and aggravation on both ends to get them home on Delta, who is at least in the linked business of selling tickets and actually transporting passengers on those tickets, while JetBlue is better at the former than the latter.
United cancelled a very important flight after delaying it several times during the day. They did not provide me any accomodations or new flights, the lady who was talking to us regarding the situation just left saying "access the app to book a new flight" - I kind of understand her position, it was not her fault but she would be the one getting screamed at by rude passengers. Long story short, I paid for my own accomodation, my own dinner and on the other day I was able to go back to the airport and find someone who helped me get another flight.
When I got back to Brazil I took united to the small claims court and got my money back plus some.
Tangential gripe: I recently flew to SFO for a weekend. In both directions I was significantly delayed due to construction on one of the runways limiting the number of planes that could land per hour.
It doesn’t seem like it ought to have been legal to sell me a ticket claiming departure and arrival times that were extremely unrealistic. United knew the construction was happening, I did not.
I was given the option to refund my ticket but it would have canceled the return flight as well, and last minute flights to SJC instead were prohibitively expensive.
The EU’s policy of forcing airlines to compensate travelers for delays seems like it better incentivizes the airlines to improve service.
This is shocking for not currently being the case.
Compare the EU where they're not only required to refund you in full, but also compensate you up to 600 euros.
Note that compensation doesn't apply to weather related events and other 'not in our control' things, but the scope is pretty narrow.
Europe has had this for years and imo it keeps the airlines pretty good in check
As often with eu regulations there are a couple of loopholes so you have to watch out nevertheless (eg force majeur like bird strikes doesn’t count, or when the flight is delayed to next day they have to pay your food and hotel but I decided to book another flight and then they don’t have to pay anything back except the fixed fee which I didn’t know…)
Wait wait wait. Requires airlines to refund? Not to compensate, but to give you your money back? What did they do before?!
> The rules come after the agency handed Southwest Airlines a record $140 million fine for its operational meltdown during the 2022 holiday travel season.
I was one of the travelers impacted by that meltdown. I waited hours and hours in the airport because of “delays”. One by one, every flight was cancelled. Southwest made everyone wait in a single file line to rebook their flight a week or two out (of course after Christmas). A couple days later they cancelled that flight too. So they issued vouchers. No way I would use a voucher for an airline that can’t get it together. I’m glad there will be cash refunds now so folks don’t get trapped with a bad airline.
Refund?? What someone paid for their ticket is not relevant. To be made whole someone needs to be given the current market value of their flight.
If I purchased a ticket for $399 but a comparable ticket now costs $799, I can't buy a new ticket with that refund.
For reference, here is what Europe has been doing for a few years: mandatory refund plus distance-based compensation.
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right...
If you depart from anywhere in the EU you always have this.
Ah, the family seating fee. I once paid close to $3k to reserve ajacent seats for my family on a 3 leg round trip. Prices varied from $80 to $200 per seat, in addition to the ticket. Was traveling with kids, wanted to make sure we were all together.
Then I started testing, and guess what? you end up together regardless. So fear based sales.
They should set a minimum seat pitch of 32" for shorthaul flights and 34" for medium and longhaul flights.
I am living in UK atm where some regulation allows claiming certain amount based on distance and delayed hours. I was entitled to more than flights cost for a delayed Turkish Airlines flight.
I used an online service (airhelp) to claim it. They initially took 35% as their fee. After around 4-5 months the airline rejected the claim and lawyers from airhelp stepped in which made their fee 50%. It took 7-8 more months, total 1 year, to get 50% of my claim back (~800£) using a third party service.
Given how complicated it is to fille a claim, even if I did it myself I would have given up on first rejection. I hope this law expands beyond US.
Legal protection is nice, but it can be circumvented, like the Lufthansa fiasco showed: https://svedic.org/travel/screwed-by-lufthansa-german-govern...
Since then, I always try to book plane tickets with PayPal. It is a bit ironic that as an EU citizen, I was screwed by EU company (Lufthansa), EU politicians (German government), but saved by a private US company (PayPal) :D
I used to travel weekly for years and if there was a glitch in the system, weather delays, plane maintenance, crew availability, etc it could be very exasperating to get things sorted out.
However for the first time in a few years I had to take a trip this past week on United. Our flight was boarded, the pilots found an issue and called maintenance. It was determined that the flight had to be cancelled, so all passengers had to deplane. The crew kept telling us all of us would be rebooked and would get notification via text or on the United app with next steps, we could also talk to a gate agent. It did take about 30 minutes but they did in fact give me a notification of options for other flights, I took all of one button press to select my new itinerary. Also I had paid for upgraded seats, specifically emergency aisles. As they were not available on all of my new flights they issued me a reimbursement for those costs. For those who had to stay over they paid for hotel and food.
It is never fun to have a flight cancelled on you but in my experience this was definitely one of the better "customer service" experiences I have had. Really can't complain about how they handled it which gives me hope that technology will allow them to offer better and more timely customer service going forward.
They'll just do what they already do: change gates 12 times in 5 hours making customers move pointlessly because they don't have a plane or crew.
Neither the title nor the post body makes it clear. Is this limited to USA?
What about airlines in other countries? Like Air Canada from Canada, and Lufthansa from Germany?
I think we all know that airlines overbook, or cancel flights if not enough people are on a flight to make it economically viable.
At a minimum they should be required to provide the odds of a flight to be delayed or canceled before the day-of to allow customers to reschedule ahead of time to get to their destination on time.
Refund of money doesn't matter when you have a place to be at a certain time, especially if you plan months in advance, only to find out 3 hours ahead of time (and at 3:30am in the morning) that your planned flight for months is suddenly canceled for "non-operation".
Literally on a cross-country vacation right now where this is the second time that a flight has been delayed/canceled on me in the past two years (American Airlines). I want to be a loyal customer, but this feels very one sided, and any monetary recourse certainly isn't enough when you hsve a place to be at a certain time (and aren't informed that it's possible you won't make it there, or else worst case you can drive)
Two years ago ( after covid ) when the airline booked me on a another flight from London to Barcelona, the rebooked flight got cancelled… they lost my luggage for over a month ( because it was as loaded on the first flight ) the only thing I received was an apology… + 600 euros mandatory refund
People need to be paid multiples of their ticket value on a sliding scale based on length of delay and whether it was overnight. There should still be compensation even if you ultimately fly on that airline.
Well, that seems obvious ? Of course they are? If you've booked a flight at a certain date, it's obviously because you need transportation at that date. If you cannot be transported at the right time, the transportation is in many cases no longer needed. For instance, if I miss a conference, my need for the transportation goes to zero, and so, I should be reimbursed _AT_LEAST_ for the transportation, but I'd argue, also for the conference if that payment has already been made.
My takes:
1. This is going to shutter a few more regional airlines, as they will deem it unprofitable to issue refunds over flying emptier planes.
2. This will encourage rolling delays even more.
One issue I have had is where they cancel the domestic final leg of a non-direct international flight. The total ticket cost was $2000, but they valued my cancelled final connection at only $40, yet if I tried to purchase just that flight alone between those two US cities, it would have been more like $400.
4 years later and i'm still trying to get money back from tap portugal from a cancelled covid trip. fuck that company so much.
also, i bought the ticket from priceline, who "expunged" there database for customers from 2 years ago and older...which sounds quite convenient and sketchy.
LOL, we have this in Europe for ages. Where are the EU-haters today?
Just yesterday I got confirmation of an EasyJet refund for a flight that arrived 4 hours late due to an engine problem during the previous flight.
250€ in my bank account within 7 days from the flight. The flight had costed me 130€. I flew for a profit.
EU works.
What about connections? Will they also refund the missed flight + hotel stay? My $100 flight was once delayed and I missed the $700 connecting flight. Airline gave me next day $700 ticket and put me in a hotel. Shall I just receive $100 under that new rule?
Is there something just intrinsically unprofitable about air travel? Why do airlines continue to get shittier and shittier and strive for the bottom of the barrel?
It’s clearly a high demand service. Couldn’t they just provide a good service and make money?
Sometimes I am so surprised that such a mundane regulation, a basic facility really, is seen as revolutionary in the US and implemented extremely late. I am so happy and lucky to have been born in this corner of the world
It's absurd that we're so hesitant to weaponize regulation against abusive business practices (because money). This should have been fixed decades ago, as it has been in some other countries.
I suppose it should be noted that refundable tickets have been a thing in the US, however, they were/are a lot more expensive than 'regular' tickets.
Still, this is a step in the right direction.
USA didn't have this rule beforehand? confused in EU
Official Transportation release: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40146124
Nice. I like the refund more than the vouchers. Good job Biden team: https://apnews.com/article/airlines-junk-fees-baggage-delays...
I guess that in the UK this has been the case for a while?
We just got 1600GBP back from British Airways for a flight delayed by 24hrs.
flight regulation or its cases against canceled fligths is so common in Europe it is the example of automatic law or law tech. https://www.flightright.de/#
Wouldn't this likely just result in increased airfare across the board?
>Buttigieg said the DOT is also protecting airline passengers from being surprised by hidden fees -- a move he estimates will have Americans billions of dollars every year.
I think I am seeing more mis-spellings in news nowadays.
Wait, they weren't required to refund before...?
I wish we could have election year Biden every year.
Anyone from EU/UK will laugh at this news
We need more competition in this industry.
This seems too good to be true?
Good news.
Step in the right direction.
...were they not required to do that before...?
Side note: Wow, ABC News is still on go.com. I worked at Disney from 2006-2015 and most people were baffled about what the heck go.com even was, and why things like ESPN, ABC, and a bunch of other big Disney properties were subdomains of it. It has a history going back to 22 years ago[1] when Disney tried running a portal with a search engine and email hosting. ESPN got off it in 2016, but I'm honestly shocked that ABC news isn't able to. Apparently it boils down to SEO?
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Would it be fair to say that civilian aviation is in a doom loop at this point? Margins get tight, quality falls, government increases cost of compliance, margins get tighter, quality falls, government saves the consumer again...?
Wouldn’t the airlines simply hike up fares to price this in? Is there regulation that caps how much flights cost?
This will be used as a pretense to raise airline fares, and won't impact cancellation rates or average delay times.
>The DOT rules lay out that passengers will be "entitled to a refund if their flight is canceled or significantly changed, and they do not accept alternative transportation or travel credits offered."
"Alternative transportation or travel credits" it will be, they will be useless. Nothing has fundamentally changed.
As someone who knows somebody that recently had a flight cancelled (then booked another flight at the same airport, only for that flight to get cancelled as well), it was very frustrating to hear that all the airlines in question would do is issue a voucher that expires in 3 months and requires the exact same people to travel alongside you (i.e. if you purchased a ticket for yourself and a relative, then the voucher only applies to flights where you and this exact same relative are boarding). It seems like a pretty blatant way for airlines to keep customer's money. Too bad this rule didn't come sooner.