The Trump administration has said it will withdraw former President Biden’s plan to require airlines to compensate passengers for airline delays and cancellations.
In a blow to air travelers, the Trump administration is scrapping a consumer-friendly Biden proposal from 2023 that would have forced airlines to pay up when they mess up.
The abandoned rule would have guaranteed passengers between $200 and $775, plus necessities like meals and hotels, whenever flights were significantly delayed or cancelled due to issues within the airline’s control; i.e. mechanical problems or system crashes.
The proposal, opened for public comment last year with no implementation timeline, was championed by Biden and Transportation Secretary Buttigieg as transformative for travelers.
“Passengers shouldn’t pay for airline-caused delays or cancellations,” Buttigieg stated in May 2023.
Consumers loved the idea, but airlines pushed back, warning it would bump up their expenses and ultimately hit travelers’ wallets. This week, the Trump administration quietly pulled the plug on the proposal through a short regulatory notice from the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, simply stating the decision matched the administration’s agenda.
Consumer rights groups say the rollback hurts the customer experience. “Experiencing flight delays and cancellations is extremely frustrating, and it is also expensive when you have to suddenly shell out hundreds of dollars for a hotel, transportation, meals, and rebooking fees,” Erin Witte, director of consumer protection for Consumer Federation of America, said in a press release.
A Transportation Department spokesperson said the DOT planned to restrict passenger protections to legal minimums while hinting they might dismantle other Biden-era safeguards. One such safeguard was a ruling last year by the DOT requiring airlines to provide customers with automatic cash refunds for cancelled or significantly delayed service.
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