Underlying all these problems are the mega-mergers (American-US Airways, United-Continental, Delta-Northwest) that were allowed to happen a decade ago, making the airlines too big to fail. If they didn’t, he warned, the Transportation Department “will be prepared for potential actions.” Rather than announce he was following the 2016 directive, he said he would be “calling on” the airlines to do the right thing. Finally in July, Buttigieg acted - only to kick the can. I requested access to documents in a Freedom of Information Act investigation and found dozens of complaints to the Transportation Department about kids with issues such as autism and some as young as 4, 3, 2 and even 1 being seated separately. Three administrations and 6½ years later, we’re still waiting. airlines not to charge fees for kids under 13 to sit with their families. Back in 2016, Congress told the transportation secretary to direct U.S. The problem of separating parents and children on flights is a case in point. Of course, much of the lack of oversight is long-standing.

The department told consumer advocates that all other outstanding refunds from domestic airlines were paid, but it didn’t detail what the amounts were or how long it took for repayment. airlines - which were led by United, with more than twice as many DOT refund complaints as any other airline - weren’t fined so much as $1. But only Frontier and five small foreign carriers were penalized. In November, Secretary Pete Buttigieg finally imposed what he termed “historic” fines. For starters, airlines withheld at least $10 billion in unpaid refunds and unused flight credits after the pandemic forced people not to fly in 2020 and beyond. That has made for toothless enforcement on dozens of consumer and safety issues.Ĭonsider what we’ve seen from the federal government since Covid hit. Only Congress and the Transportation Department oversee airlines, and the department and its subsidiary, the FAA, have long struggled with a dual mandate to both promote and regulate airlines. That’s because of two words: “federal preemption.” The phrase, included in the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, means flyers have fewer rights when interacting with airlines than with just about any other industry - limited ability to sue in state courts, no actions from state attorneys general, no bills by state legislatures. The travel chaos resulted from all airlines’ straining their operations to the max by not making proper investments in personnel and technology, scheduling flights without adequate staffing and filling cabins to the bursting point so that any interruption spurred massive disruptions, stranding passengers and baggage alike from coast to coast.

But some of us weren’t at all surprised: Southwest’s crisis was inevitable after years of lax oversight by the Transportation Department, as well as the airlines’ prioritizing stock dividends and executive compensation over necessary investments, including the frighteningly outdated IT and crew scheduling systems that Southwest’s own employees warned about.Īs an aircraft dispatcher licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration who spent seven years in airline flight operations management, and as someone who has been advocating for passengers since 2000, I can assure you that last week was not about snowstorms (or just about Southwest).

airline history, setting a new low by stranding more than 1 million paying passengers. There’s little question that Southwest’s holiday meltdown was the worst customer service debacle in U.S.

Southwest airlines delays