Some members of Congress want Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to do more to force airlines to make things right for passengers stranded by flight delays and cancellations.
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A lot is at stake for the airlines, which have already faced questions from lawmakers about why their $50 billion in federal pandemic relief didn’t leave them better prepared for the sharp bounceback in travel demand.

While DOT has largely opted for dialogue instead of punishment to get the airlines to improve their performance, just last week the department announced it had forced Denver-based Frontier Airlines and five foreign carriers to give passengers $600 million in refunds for canceled flights. It also fined them a total of $7.25 million and said more civil penalties against airlines for consumer protection violations could follow by the end of the year.

That was just a taste of what the government can do, people following the industry said.

“The airlines are keenly aware that if they do not meet or exceed expected standards of service to the public when things go wrong and within the airline’s control, they know the government is going to come down hard on them,” said airline and travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt.

DOT has broad consumer protection authority and uses it when airlines fail to issue prompt refunds, keep passengers on the tarmac too long or violate similar rules, though the agency has largely stayed on the sidelines during the chaos that has punctuated the past year. But it can take stiffer action if it chooses to, Harteveldt said, such as imposing steeper fines or even threatening to take away takeoff or arrival times at a handful of key airports, Harteveldt said.

“There is no patience and very little goodwill left among lawmakers, government agency leadership and the traveling public to cut the airlines slack for things that are viewed to be controllable,” Harteveldt said, excluding unexpected bad weather.

The trade group Airlines for America, also called A4A, said the industry has put its summer woes behind it.

“Airlines are ready now,” Sharon Pinkerton, A4A’s senior vice president of legislative and regulatory policy, told reporters Nov. 16. “What’s different is, frankly, is the fact that we have hired thousands more people. We have clearly identified what our issues have been and we’ve worked to address them. That’s why we’re confident this travel season will be different.”

Not just refunds

Lawmakers who had given the airlines all that pandemic relief money, in part to prevent mass layoffs, remain riled that the industry was so unable to cope when passengers returned.

In their letter to Buttigieg on Wednesday, Senate Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) asked DOT to increase the kinds of compensation that passengers are legally entitled to for delays or cancellations that are the airlines’ fault. Many airlines voluntarily give passengers benefits such as meals or hotel stays in those circumstances, but not all carriers do, and some don’t waive their fees for passengers who choose to change flights.

The senators’ letter is in keeping with DOT’s latest proposal to help strengthen protections for airline passengers who want a cash refund after a flight is canceled. The lawmakers also want increased transparency, saying airlines should have to file monthly reports to the department’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics listing how much money in refunds and vouchers they had given to passengers.

Republican lawmakers have also pressed airlines on these travel growing pains. Last year, House Transportation Committee ranking member Sam Graves (R-Mo.) — likely to become the panel’s next chair — joined Democratic Chair Peter DeFazio of Oregon in asking the airlines to explain their systemwide disruptions. Separately, Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee demanded answers from major carriers on what remaining obstacles stood “in the way to achieving normalcy.”

Pushes for more compensation for passengers could find a home in the FAA reauthorization bill that Congress is required to pass in 2023, said John Breyault of the National Consumers League.

Breyault, the league’s vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud, argued that the U.S. should adopt more European-style rules that give passengers cash if a cancellation or long delay occurs, even if the flight eventually takes off. Second, more people need to police the system, he said.

While airlines are slowly progressing, staffing imbalances persist, said Dennis Tajer, an American Airlines pilot and a spokesperson for the Allied Pilots Association.