Airlines will be required to give refunds in cash for things like canceled or seriously changed or delayed flights, the administration said.
A federal rule announced Wednesday will require airlines to quickly give cash refunds — without lengthy arguments — to passengers whose flights have been canceled or seriously delayed, the Biden administration said.
“Passengers deserve to get their money back when an airline owes them — without headaches or haggling,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement.
The rule from the Department of Transportation says passengers who decline other reimbursement like travel credits are to get a cash refund.
It applies to canceled flights or when flights have a “significant change,” the administration said.
A “significant change” includes when departure or arrival times are three or more hours different than scheduled for domestic flights or six hours for international flights, and also cases where the airport is changed or connections added, it said.
Passengers are also to get a refund when their baggage is 12 hours late in delivery for domestic flights.
Seems like the Biden Administration has been trying to speed run the “good ideas” list as we move into election season. This is a great change. The bullshit “refund” system airlines have been using needed killing. We had a family trip get canceled due to the pandemic and ended up with a “credit” from the airline which had a laundry list of restrictions on it, making it very difficult to use. If I pay a company money for a service and they fail to provide that service, there should be no situation under which they are allowed to keep my money.
On the other piece of this, it will be nice to see baggage fees up front. I’m probably weird in that I don’t mind paying per checked bag. Most of my travel is with my family and we really don’t need a checked bag per person. So, I’d rather pay a bit less for the tickets and pay for the bags we do need separately. At the same time, I’d absolutely love to have that cost be considered when I am searching for flights.
Seems like the Biden Administration has been trying to speed run the “good ideas” list as we move into election season.
I wish they’d speed run the good ideas starting right after Inauguration Day so that they’d have had time to come up with even better ones to do now.
As someone who got used to Southwest I really chaff against baggage fees and different ticket classes. Worst they had was paying to board early and get a window/aisle seat.
But I’m hugely in favor of making airlines more transparent.
It seems like the Biden admin is really focused on fighting the bullshitification of the service economy, and I can fuck with that energy.
I can too. This has some serious anti-trump (anti-‘drain the swamp’ and anti-‘make everything in Washington more terrible on purpose’) energy. I wish this didn’t only happen in an election year.
