US airlines are pushing to remove protections for passengers and add more fees

I've had four overnight delays on three transatlantic trips this year. Fortunately, EU passenger compensation rules applied to three of them; the airline must pay each delayed passenger 600€ or convince them to take a more compelling non-cash offer.

I'm not for heavily regulating non-safety details of how most industries do business, but I do think it's fair to demand the true price up front and compensation when the airline doesn't provide the service it sold for reasons within its control.

Right, I've had train companies put me in a taxi, and just eat the price of a taxi to wherever because if you want to sell tickets to travel to X, and then oops you can't get me to X well, I didn't buy your "regret" that you can't do that - I bought travel to X, so if that's still possible you'd better make it happen and too bad if that's not profitable.

There was a year I made more money from flying than I spent, because I kept flying ryanair or easyjet and I kept getting massive delays (one was a 20h delay, in which I spent the night at the airport squatting some of the couches in a cafe in the terminal, because small delays kept being slowly pushed on us, and we also spent 2h waiting in the final plane for it to take off, no A/C and they refused to give us water threatening to call the cops on us if we did get water bottles ourselves, great experience!)

Ryanair is the most punctual airline tho

Absolutely not in my experience, maybe I've just been really unlucky but I can't remember more than 1 Ryanair flight I've been on that was actually on time. Most delayed by less than 4 hours, but delayed.

I got an email from the train company that according to their records I had a delay and they put a link in it to a online form to get my money back.

I was positively surprised at their proactive communication. The money was on my account within the week!

Ryanair has the very sleazy habit if saying things like "we have just landed at X, note how we are 5 minutes ahead of schedule!" over the PA.

However, they don't make a peep when the flight lands with a delay.

In Italy, for regional trains, since 2025 Trenitalia gives the reimboursement automatically to your credit card if you purchased the ticket electronically. [1]

[1] https://www.firstonline.info/en/trenitalia-rimborsi-automati...

Could you share more context on the water bottle thing? That makes no sense to me.

Good news I guess? I was in this situation in 2024 and asked a fellow traveler who was Italian what recourse we had. He laughed and replied “none, we’re fucked”.

I do believe such regulation is merited as airlines have a strong financial incentive to misbehave.

Too many times I’ve seen flights, closer to empty than full, mysteriously cancelled due to “mechanical issues”.

Yes things happen on their own. But others are motivated by profit.

I interpreted it as they were stuck on the tarmac for a long time. People were getting dehydrated and asked for water. The FA’s refused to serve drinks on the tarmac. Passengers said “fuck it this is a health issue I’ll just get it from the galley myself”. The FA’s threatened that anyone who did that would be arrested.

Passengers only options were to either deal with the dehydration or declare an actual emergency and get official medical transport off of the plane to an ER and deal with whatever bills/consequences that might generate.

The next morning was really hot, they made us wait in the sun for an hour outside to board the plane, then again for an hour or two in the plane before it departed (even announcing at some point they would land in Manchester instead of London, that got some good reactions out of all of us stranded in Poland). Then in the plane there was no AC and some people were almost fainting, so I stood up and went to get water myself since they were telling people that they couldn't give us water until after we take off. They stopped me and said they would call the cops and they would arrest me wherever we would land if I tried to get water bottles myself. It was ryanair or easyjet, can't remember. can't blame them, they're truly shitty airlines

This but inside the plane waiting for take off, after having waited a long time on the tarmac

Not at all in my experience

>I'm not for heavily regulating non-safety details of how most industries do business, but I do think it's fair to demand the true price up front and compensation when the airline doesn't provide the service it sold for reasons within its control.

Why the exception for this then? There are many situations where regulations could protect consumers and I don't understand why you have the general view against non-safety regulations.

Would you like to substantiate your extraordinary claim with some actual evidence?

No airline wants passengers up and about while on the tarmac. Once they get clearance to move they need to get going almost immediately and can't move if passengers aren't seated.

That doesn't excuse the flight crew for not handing out water however. That's just a cheap airline being stingier than necessary.

There are several factors that make this situation especially suitable for regulation.

The most important is that airlines have the ability and motivation to force passengers to accept unfavorable terms, and passengers have no ability to negotiate more favorable terms. Many routes are only served by one airline, so there isn't even competitive pressure in those cases. There's also a financial incentive for airlines to mistreat customers, e.g. by overbooking flights, canceling underbooked flights, and delaying non-mandatory maintenance until the cheapest or most convenient time.

The limited availability of choice makes sense for regulation but I will say most of the other reasons exist with most other companies.

I believe in regulation for the market to protect consumers for all products and services.

Meanwhile I had a terrible experience with DB (Deutsche Bahn) during the European summer two years ago, although it was partly out of their control (weather related delays and cancellations), I had to take awful detours, had paid for 1st class on ICE and ended up on regional trains up and down and lost one day of my holidays. No compensation whatsoever, although maybe I had to fill some online form for that.

The "making us wait in the sun for an hour outside to board the plane" is to game the EU limitations on how long the airline can make you wait on the tarmac:

- after 1hr delay, they must provide access to water/A/C/heat/lavatories. Also to medical assistance (if needed). - and after 5hrs on tarmac, passengers must be given the chance to leave the aircraft. - Exceptions: These rules do not apply if the delay is due to safety, security, or ATC reasons.

Making you wait outside on the tarmac before boarding is bad but skirts the regulations. They key clock time to watch is how long were you waiting after boarding the plane?

Probably also useful to reference your specific EU rights if they object.

If after 1+1hrs wait, passengers were going to faint unless they got water, that seems to be pushing "would need medical assistance".