Air travel in the US has increasingly become more and more of a racket over the last few decades. Base ticket prices are expensive, and then you have all of the add-ons, like luggage fees, seating, carry-on bags, etc. Cost aside, you’re likely to face delays and cancellations, which can really mess up your travel plans, cause a ton of unnecessary stress and, in some cases, financial burden. For example, if an airline cancels your flight because of “weather,” they are not required to help you pay for a night in a hotel. More on that later!
Since taking office in 2021, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has been busy trying to enact changes to air travel. He set up the Dept. of Transportation’s Customer Service Dashboard for more transparency to try to shame airlines into doing right by customers. Don’t worry, airlines are still finding ways to cheat the system; again, more on that later. I guess he’s also been enforcing rules already set in place as well because American Airlines was just fined $4.1 million for keeping passengers on board for too long during delays. Good. Keep it coming, Secretary Pete.
The federal government is fining American Airlines $4.1 million for dozens of instances in which passengers were kept on board planes without a chance to exit during long ground delays.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said Monday it is the largest such fine against an airline since rules covering long ground delays took effect about a decade ago.
American owes half the fine in the next 30 days, while the department gave the airline credit for the other half, just over $2 million, for compensation it paid to delayed passengers, according to a consent order that settled the case.
The department said its investigation revealed that from 2018 through 2021, American kept 43 domestic flights stuck on the ground for at least three hours without giving passengers — 5,821 in all — the chance to deplane. There are exceptions in which airlines are allowed to bend the rules, including for safety and security reasons, but the department said none of those were factors in the flights it identified.
“This is the latest action in our continued drive to enforce the rights of airline passengers,” said Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who vowed to hold airlines accountable under consumer-protection laws.
According to the consent order, American said it seeks to avoid any lengthy ground delays, but the 43 flights represented a tiny fraction of 1% of the roughly 7.7 million flights that American and American Eagle operated between 2018 and 2021. The airline said it provided “substantial compensation” to delayed passengers,” and has since devoted more management attention to avoiding delays.
Most of the delays occurred at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, where American is the dominant airline, and others occurred in San Antonio and Houston when flights heading to DFW were diverted there. Many occurred during thunderstorms, and American was unable to manage its airport gates to let passengers deplane.
The airline took particular issue with delays at Reagan Washington National Airport during a winter storm in January 2019, but accepted the settlement outline in the consent order.
I am still pretty salty over the big airlines getting a bailout at the start of the pandemic because they took their 2017 tax cut money and spent it on stock buybacks instead of keeping a “rainy day” fund. I want my tax dollars to pay for public schools, libraries, and parks, not for a bunch of airlines to not go bankrupt because their rich CEOs wanted to get richer. I hope passengers get more rights, too. That thing I said above about airlines finding ways to cheat the system? Well, earlier this month, my family and I were on a mid-afternoon flight out of LaGuardia that was repeatedly delayed because our pilot was stuck on a plane that was having maintenance issues out of Washington, D.C. Two different gate agents told us this for hours. It was eventually canceled. Thankfully, my husband and kids ended up getting on a flight off of standby. We were told that American Airlines would reimburse any hotel expenses, so some people from my flight booked hotels. About 15 minutes later, we were told that the flight had been canceled because of “weather” and – I quote – “There is nothing we can do for you. We don’t owe you anything.”
So, how did American get away with this? Well, the plane was delayed for mechanical issues, but as soon as the radar called for storms along our route, they were able to cancel it for “weather.” That is some BS right there. The flight my family took? It left at the same time as the original flight’s last rescheduled time. I ended up getting off standby for a flight that left around 10 p.m. (and wrote two CB posts from the airport!) and got home around midnight, but I was one of the lucky ones. The people who booked hotels? They won’t be reimbursed. All because American had a broken plane and got lucky that there was rain somewhere on the East Coast. So yeah, I am jumping for joy that American faced some consequences and hope more airlines are held accountable in the future. Secretary Pete, let’s get on figuring out a high-speed rail, okay?
photos via Instagram and credit Jim West/ImageBROKER/Avalon
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