As anyone who has tried to board a plane recently knows, U.S. air travel has been an utter mess this summer. So far in 2022, airlines have already canceled more than 122,000 flights—more cancellations than in all of last year—and one in five flights arrives behind schedule, according to a recent letter from two U.S. senators to the Department of Transportation.
But this week, the Biden administration is cracking down on airlines. On Wednesday, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg proposed a new federal rule that would make it easier for air passengers to get refunds for significantly changed or canceled flights. Under the proposed rule, if an airline makes specific changes to a traveler’s flight itinerary, the ticket would be eligible for a full refund.
The rule would define a “significant change” that warrants a refund as changes that affect the departure and/or arrival times by three hours or more for domestic flights, and six hours or more for international flights; changes to the arrival or departure airports; changes that increase the number of connections in the flight itinerary; and changes to the type of aircraft, if it causes a significant downgrade for the customer.
The proposal also broadly defines a refundable flight cancellation as “a flight that was published in a carrier’s Computer Reservation System at the time of the ticket sale but was not operated by the carrier.”
Having such specific definitions spelled out is a huge win for consumers. Previously, federal regulations have stipulated that airlines should refund customers for significant flight changes or cancellations, but officials never defined those terms. Instead, airlines were allowed to decide what constituted a significant change or cancellation to a passenger's itinerary.
It’s a loophole that many carriers have seemed to take advantage of. Since 2020, the DOT says it has received “a flood” of complaints from travelers who were unable to get refunds that airlines owed them. In fact, the number of consumer airline complaints has jumped 300 percent since the pandemic began, according to recent DOT statistics. Back in 2020, officials issued a warning to air carriers, urging them to end misleading practices around customer refunds.
However, that verbal warning was widely seen in the industry as just a slap on the wrist: no actual regulations have been changed until Wednesday’s newly proposed rule. “When Americans buy an airline ticket, they should get to their destination safely, reliably, and affordably,” Buttigieg said of the proposed regulation in a release. “This new proposed rule would protect the rights of travelers and help ensure they get the timely refunds they deserve from the airlines.”
Additionally, the new rule would require any airline that receives significant government assistance to issue a refund instead of flight vouchers when travelers are unable to fly for pandemic-related reasons, such as closed borders or when advised not to travel to protect their health. This part of the proposal would apply to almost all U.S. airlines, which collectively received $50 billion in federal bailout money in early 2020.
While currently the rule is just a proposal, the DOT is taking the next steps to make it an official federal regulation. On August 22, there will be a public virtual meeting of the Aviation Consumer Protection Advisory Committee focused on the new rule. (Requests to attend the meeting must be submitted here, and requests to make remarks during the meeting submitted here.) The public can also comment on the proposed rule for up to 90 days on the DOT’s website.
