Us Airlines Are Pushing to Remove Protections for Passengers and Add More Fees
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US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees, sparking controversy and concern among commenters about the impact on consumers and the industry's priorities.
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>American Joins Delta, Southwest, United and Other US Airlines Push to Strip Away Travelers’ Rights and Add More Fees by Rolling Back Key Protections in New Deregulation Move
* Automatic Refunds for Cancellations: Airlines want to remove the requirement to provide automatic refunds when flights are cancelled or significantly altered. Passengers may instead receive only vouchers or no compensation at all, leaving them without recourse in the event of a major flight disruption.
* Transparency of Fees: The airlines also aim to strip away rules that require them to disclose all fees (like baggage, seat assignments, and service charges) upfront. Instead of the clear, itemized pricing system that passengers currently rely on, airlines could hide fees until later in the booking process, making the true cost of a ticket much higher than expected.
* Family Seating Guarantees: Under current regulations, airlines must ensure that families with young children are seated together without additional charges. This would no longer be guaranteed under the new proposal, meaning families could face extra costs just to sit next to one another.
* Accessibility Protections for Disabled Passengers: The deregulation proposal also targets protections for disabled passengers, weakening their access to support and assistance during air travel.
Nasty site full of a gazillion trackers etc.
Basically half of flights I've ever booked have had a cancellation. Usually the airline customer service had to rebook a new itinerary for the same purpose, but once in the past year they had to issue a refund because all possible routes went through DFW and they had lightning, which they have all the time.
It's absolutely ridiculous to even suggest that you should be able to take someone's money and not render services. That's a fundamental part of commerce.
I wonder if there are any anti-retaliation provisions, or if they’ll just have a special no-fly list for people they sold non-existent flights to, and that refused to pay up.
You would seem to be a very unlucky person. My record is somewhere in the low single digits. Obviously, my percentage of flights with some delays has been somewhat higher.
There is not coverage beyond one adult already in the US. With an additional adult and one child, the airlines already adds in fees. It’s also non-transparent when booking that they have made sure the easy path is the charged path, especially now that airlines make you pay to guarantee being seated together prior to flight checkin 24 hours in advance of takeoff.
Capitalist money-making idea: guarantee young children are seated as far away as possible from their parents if the fee is not paid, then offer to collect the fee from other passengers seated next to the child. Double the cost if it's a baby.
Would airlines even get away with that, given that card payments for non-provided services can usually be trivially charged back?
Presumably business travelers would not always care enough, but their company's expense management department certainly would.
I suppose we’ve just given up on the concept of trying to do anything but nakedly extract profit at any cost. You’d think shareholders would be pro-competition in the end, though—I certainly would prefer that.
Edit: I mean short-term profits. As a shareholder I would prefer long-term profits via competition and diversification.
Airlines profits are basically zero per ticket. Adding $10 per trip would be some sort of fantasy land windfall for the shareholders.
Deregulation badly broke this industry.
Your comments remind me of the arguments Ma Bell gave to justify their monopoly. Oh noez, quality will suffer if there's telecom competition. Well, people ended up being willing to make the tradeoff.
You did score a hit with airline profits being low. The whole purpose of regulation was to artificially inflate prices to ensure profits for airlines.
Basically. I have used a combination of miles and co-pays to upgrade to business trans-Pacific. But most of the time going from the east coast US to Europe (especially when I can do it without a red-eye to London), I end up thinking of all the nice stuff I could do with $5K at the cost of sort of a miserable flight.
It's not that I couldn't splurge but there are other things I'd generally prefer to splurge on.
This is directly correlated with airfares. Were planes as sparsely loaded now as they were then then fares would be correspondingly higher. But in a deregulated environment there's a very strong incentive for increased economic efficiency to keep the fares competitive.
> and flying is miserable
It isn't. I have flowing with budget airlines in Europe and its, basically fine. Not luxury but really its incredibly value.
On the same price as you did before, you now get luxury.
> Crashes are way up this year.
What the fuck does 'this year' have to do with it when we are talking about something that happened in around the 1980s.
Total safety is up massively, and per passenger safety is up by an absurd amount.
Any counter-argument to this is literally not credible.
> Airlines profits are basically zero per ticket.
So capitalism works? Not sure what your point is.
> Deregulation badly broke this industry.
Based on what?
And in both the US and in Europe airlines are 'heavily' regulated. That's a meaningless distinction.
Ironically, South West was the most successful budget airline in the US, and it was way better then Raynair the most successful budget airline in Europe.
What the actual F? Deregulation of airlines was massively beneficial to consumers.
"Base ticket prices have declined steadily since deregulation.[15] The inflation-adjusted 1982 constant dollar yield for airlines has fallen from 12.3 cents in 1978 to 7.9 cents in 1997,[16] and the inflation-adjusted real price of flying fell 44.9% from 1978 to 2011.[17] Along with a rising U.S. population[18] and the increasing demand of workforce mobility, these trends were some of the catalysts for dramatic expansion in passenger miles flown, increasing from 250 million passenger miles in 1978 to 750 million passenger miles in 2005.[19]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_deregulation
Also, are those prices apples to apples with pre-deregulation tickets?
Like, can I just walk up to the terminal, same day, pay that price, and get the equivalent of business class on the plane, and still pay 44% less than real 1978 prices?
The end game of capitalism is monopoly. Why would shareholders want competition that prevents them from extracting maximum profit?
https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/air-travel-complaints-resolution-p...
But note: > Due to a high volume of complaints, there will be a delay between when a complaint is submitted and waits in the queue and when the complaint process will start.
wat
"Two days from when we actually ship it, which might be today, but might be tomorrow, or in three days from now..."
They call what we have now “clear”? Where when looking at a page of flights I don’t know how much the multitude of economy/economy+/economy++/premium economy/business/business++ seats will cost until I click on each flight? Where every carrier offers slightly different variations of these seats such that I can’t cross-shop on Google Flights?
Is that the clear and transparent system the airlines are complaining about?
Personally - I think that the two main drivers of autism are people having kids later and too high rates of smart people intermarriage.
Of course Trump should not have said Tylenol, but paracetamol.
And there are some very mild hints in the data that they are correlated, but not enough sigmas.
And of course it could be Tylenol and something else with which ot interacts. And autism is so hard to be linked to anything because of how big the umbrella is and that we have such high delay to diagnosis that we will never know. Not taking medications when not really necessary is probably a good precaution principle
My point is merely that the lie against reality is being perpetrated by Republicans. You never really addressed that.
Anyway, it works very well for the aches and pains that come from manual labor.
(To be fair, though, this was never mainstream in the Democratic party the way these things are now among the Republicans.)
Biological sex clearly is not a fiction; we have lots of evidence that it's not something you choose. It's also not necessarily binary, even in humans, although it is mostly binary.
I also did not believe that Biden was ready for four more years, but then again, what choice did I have? I would not have voted for Trump under any circumstances, and sitting it out would be giving my vote away.
You're painting with a rather broad brush. You must have at least a few liberals in your life with whom you can compare notes.
Not sure what you mean about it being a Trump, sit out, or Biden choice when Biden wasn't an option in the final election. The choice you had was to vote for someone else in the primary, which did have plenty of other people running (albeit no major names). Of course, the better thing would've been the Democratic establishment putting a better option in front of you for the primary, so that's not directly your fault, but is the fault of "Democrats."
> You're painting with a rather broad brush.
As are you when you call the Democrats' reality "the real reality."
I literally never said that. You also have no idea what my political background is. All I said is that I would never vote for Trump.
In fact, I do believe that there is one reality, because I am a scientist. For me, politics has nothing to do with it. I’m sorry that it does for you. It shouldn’t.
Looks interesting!
And yes, the director's cut. Absolutely the director's cut.
And baggage handling systems are much better than the 80s. It's been 5 years since an airline has lost checked luggage for me. But of course, it's been 5 years since I checked luggage, so who knows? I really miss Yamato 宅配便 from when I lived in Japan. Americans really don't know how to travel correctly.
Meh. The dollar is probably going to be devalued soon so the dream of air travel for the typical American will likely only be in the rear-view mirror. We'll all be lost in wistful nostalgia about the time when normal people could afford air travel.
So... SOME things were worse in the 80s/90s. Not all things related to traveling.
Prices of tickets were more expensive for sure, so air travel was more of a luxury.
The era of the hidden fees started during the late Bush era, and with the advents of online booking, and with the rise of the 'cheap airlines' like RyanAir, Spirit, etc...
They had hidden fees as part of their busisness model. The larger carriers started following suit with more restricitons for the cheapest base tickets (no luggage) and more fees for things that used to be included before.
This is completely different from the 90s, which you paid and things were more upfront.
It hasn't even been two weeks for me, although my luggage arrived the next day. I remember on Slashdot hearing the advice of always packing a firearm (even a starter pistol) in checked luggage when traveling domestically—not only is it legal, but the BATFE gets involved if the airline loses your luggage, so the airline is very careful not to lose your luggage.
I don’t understand how it could be made simpler, unless you want every flight to cost the same, which is stupid. Hence the complaint does not make sense.
When choosing your outbound leg(s), they show a price inclusive of the cheapest return journey on the day you selected to return using the class of service on your outbound leg. So, there's all sorts of ways for it to be incorrect - maybe you want a different class of service, maybe the cheapest return has a stop but you'd like the direct, etc. - but it's still really useful for figuring out the best options for your flights.
The legislation nor the regulations were geared toward third party aggregators.
There is a reason I took Amtrak last vacation. Too bad they doen't go do where my next vacation will be.
Whenever I search (admittedly mostly on Southwest), I get everything up front.
What they want is a return to the old pre-Obama days where all the taxes and mandatory fees (government and stuff they made up) were only displayed at check out. Kind of like resort fees on hotels.
Does this mean when the passenger cancels or when the airline cancels? If it’s when the passenger chooses to cancel, this seems fine and fair: he paid for a flight; he chose not to take it. If it’s the latter, then it seems very unfair.
> Transparency of Fees
This seems patently unfair. Folks should know what they’re going to be paying ahead of time.
> Family Seating Guarantees
On the one hand, this seems fair. If you want to sit together, pay for that privilege. It doesn’t make sense to tax every other passenger for it. OTOH, families are a net benefit to society, so maybe it’s right for everyone else to pitch in a bit. Also, nothing is worse than the folks who didn’t pay up ahead of time who bug one, ‘may we switch seats so we can sit together?’ So perhaps free family seating makes life easier for everyone.
> [Elimination of] Accessibility Protections for Disabled Passengers
I wonder what that actually means. It could be fair (for example, folks too large for one seat purchasing two) or unfair.
Airline cancellations. Seeing as they're talking about making a change, I assume it's airline cancellations, since no airline will currently refund you for a passenger cancellation.
I understand airlines are very feast or famine and often operate on very thin margins, but at this point I’m willing to pay a little more for the experience to not be so categorically and consistently miserable
Otherwise I find everything ok. The flights are fine -- packed but it is what it is there's high demand. I could do with/without the food if it reduced the price, I can pack my own. But otherwise I find them fine.
What makes air travel miserable for you?
They’re eliminating it because the new CEO is trying to speed-run them out of business.
This CEO is a freaking idiot. Is this an excel jockey/MBA a-hole like the kind that ran Boeing and Intel into the ground?
What’s wrong with the board that voted this idiot in?
[0] https://beatofhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Stronger...
They could have added something like $30-50 to each ticket, blamed inflation, and been done. They used to be the premium choice vs airlines like united, which charge way more for intentionally separate coach seats with no legroom or luggage allowances.
https://mobile.southwest.com/fare-information/
Before, you could cancel within 24 hours of boarding and get your full amount as at least a credit without any extra fee for any ticket class. That credit had no expiration. Now, there's a fee and expiration for this credit.
Similar things happened to family members multiple times where their initial flight (overseas) was delayed by 6 hours, they had many issues, and nobody provided information about their rights. I told them about what to ask for and voila, $1100 refund.
Agreed. I think they leave too much money on the table. Use of window shades and lavatories could be behind a subscription service as well, with Sky Comfort+ affording you the privilege of multiple lavatory visits for those who have chosen the luxury IBS lifestyle. I'll let you know if I think of anything else those pesky airline passengers take for granted.
I’d offer $300 roundtrip to Lahaina for 5-10 days, airlines? Any takers?
They tried to straight up remove the window shades, but that’s currently required by Ireland so no dice. A toilet charge has been floated but is apparently difficult both legally and technically. However given Ryanair’s usual treatment of passengers with disabilities I have no doubt a passenger with IBS would have an experience.
> On the one hand, this seems fair. If you want to sit together [with your family], pay for that privilege
This seems shortsighted. Airlines could get much more money if they added a fee to guarantee not to be seated beside a kid!
Separately there should be a fee for opening/closing the AC vent and using the overhead lights.
I'd rather pay a monetary tax on my ticket to keep families organized together instead of the discomfort tax of sharing a row with parent+child that has been unexpectedly split up from their partner and is now trying to manage the child's behavior for the duration of the flight without the benefit of teamwork.
This presumably would mean you’d be feeding a random kid a bottle on long flights. God knows how they’d accommodate breastfeeding.
With an infant, having two caregivers within reach is huge. When flying with infant in arms there's nowhere to put the kid down, you don't have a free hand. An extra set of hands to wipe up spit-up, help adjust clothing for breastfeeding, collect the diaper bag, etc is a huge help.
The idea that parents need to pay more to help their children is cruel. I would expect people seated next to a child to end up swapping, to help the parent and to escape the noisy child. But that slows down boarding as people shuffle seats and adds anxiety that we're perfectly able to resolve.
Some of us parents ask that question for your benefit, not ours. Do you want to sit next to my three-year-old?
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