Three US Democratic senators urged the Department of Transportation on Wednesday to increase airline passengers’ compensation for cancelled and delayed flights when the airline is at fault.
Eko Hot Blog reports that the pressure campaign comes on the eve of Thanksgiving as airlines prepare for near pre-pandemic levels of travel.
EDITOR’S PICKS
-
US Midterms: Georgia Court Rules Against Halting Saturday Early Runoff Voting
-
US: Lethal Injection Execution Halted Till Further Review In Alabama
-
US: 3 College Football Players Murdered, Game Canceled In Virginia
In a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Democratic Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington, Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut wrote the airlines should be responsible for passengers’ “secondary costs” when they cancel or “significantly” delay a flight.
“The refunds rule should require airlines to cover secondary costs – such as hotel rooms, food, and drink, and transportation to-and-from the airport – when an airline, due to a problem within its control, cancels or significantly delays a flight,” wrote the senators.
Airlines have paid more than $600 million in refunds to hundreds of thousands of passengers for canceled or changed flights since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the Department of Transportation.
But federal regulators say that some airlines have skirted the rules. The department has issued $7.25 million in fines against six airlines for “extreme delays in providing those refunds to passengers,” said Buttigieg this month. That brings the total assessed fines for 2022 to $8.1 million – a record in civil penalties for the department’s consumer protection program.
In August, major airlines said they would provide food and lodging if they caused a cancellation after Buttigieg pressed them to upgrade their customer service commitments.
The three senators pushed the department to strengthen its proposed rule on ticket refunds for airline passengers even further, noting that domestic airlines have canceled nearly 3% of flights and delayed 21% of flights in the first eight months of 2022, citing data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
“This rulemaking is a critical response to the increase in flight cancellations and delays during the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in a record number of consumer complaints about the refund process,” wrote the senators.
FURTHER READING
-
Disney Ex-CEO Bob Iger To Return For 2 Years
-
Indonesia: Earthquake Kills 162 And Injures Hundreds
-
US: Prosecution Rests Earlier Than Expected In Trump Organization Tax Fraud Case
Katherine Estep, a spokesperson for Airlines for America, the industry’s leading trade group, said that their members “fully comply with all federal laws and regulations regarding cash refunds.” Estep added that in the first nine months of 2022, US passenger airlines “issued $8.3 billion in cash refunds, more than all of the refunds issued in 2021.”
Source: CNN
Click to watch our video of the week:
Advertise or Publish a Story on EkoHot Blog:
Kindly contact us at [email protected]. Breaking stories should be sent to the above email and substantiated with pictorial evidence.
Citizen journalists will receive a token as data incentive.
Call or Whatsapp: 0803 561 7233, 0703 414 5611