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

> Airlines want to remove the requirement to provide automatic refunds when flights are cancelled or significantly altered.

This is wild. Are they really asking to be able to take money for a flight, then cacel it and keep the money? That's crazy.

The purpose is economic extraction of the customer base. They really are asking, because they can, and that aligns with this administration's low regulation and anti consumer stance.

Edit: Comment of comment value removed. Updated to increase value. Thanks indoordin0saur, I am occasionally in the wrong gear until the psychotropics kick in.

Why not celebrate the acceleration achieved by deregulation instead?

If you know it's a low value post then don't post it.

I mean, why even bother to run flights at all in this scenario?

They could cancel 80% of flights and keep the rest to pretend they are still an airline.

Cancelations would be more profitable than the flights themselves.

I imagine the class action lawsuits at that point would bankrupt them

Class actions lawsuits only work if the courts and legislators have an interest in consumer protection.

Presumably pre-emptively nullified by that arbitration agreement when you accepted the T&C to purchase the ticket.

80% would be way too much, the consumers would catch on and probably not buy tickets anymore. But don't worry, the airlines' best MBAs will be hard at work calculating the exact percentage of flights they have to fly before it starts hurting the bottom line. And once all airlines start doing it, they could bring that percentage down - what are the consumers gonna do if that's the only way to get to the destination?

Airlines are basically as stupid and greedy as telcos. If it were up to them, GA aircraft, UAVs, model aircraft and basically anything that wasn't military or an airliner would be banned. It has strong analogs in telcos swallowing up large amounts of spectrum "cause muh 5 gee" and just squatting on it. I'm sure safety would be in the shitter too if the FAA was less watchful (not to say it's sufficiently aggressive on the big players today).

I don't think that is going to happen. Before this new-ish regulation, the airline had discretion over how to rebook you or compensate you. Now if the delay is over 3h (iirc) they have to refund you.

I think even an arbitration court would have them reimburse you if they simply canceled a flight and kept your money.

>This is wild.

Keep in mind this rule has only been in affect for a little over a year. Airlines weren't being "wild" last year before the change.

In practice, they're not likely to just refuse any kind of recompense. More likely:

* Giving a credit instead of a refund.

* Offer a take-it-or-leave-it alternative flight.

* Only giving out credit/refund on request (so people that don't realize or do it in time loose their money).

a credit instead of a refund is almost the same thing as not offering a refund. you're going to have a hard time using that refund in a manner that benefits you (not taking a flight for no reason)

They still have to offer replacement flights, and if the replacement flight isn't reasonable they have to refund. They can't just keep your money.

Don't forget that a lot of flights are business flights. Fortune 500 companies will negotiate deals with the airlines, and they will ensure that getting there matters. Sure the CEO flys the company jet, but the next level down rarely does, but they talk to the CEO and will ensure that the chosen airline will get their people there by contract (wherever there is), if the airlines start failing to get people there on time these contracts will change since the large companies have enough money to matter. Those who fly a lot (again likely for business, even small businesses sometimes have someone flying several times a week) again are people the airlines need to make happy as they will go to different airline if there are problems.

Which is to say they can screw the "common man" who rarely flies, but most of the business is people who have enough power to to to airlines that treat them well and at that point it normally isn't worth screwing anyone.

Arbitration is not automatically in their favor. It is cheaper by far than a trial (in most cases), but they need to be at least somewhat fair or the whole thing collapses next time the government changes.

Every one of their pilots learned to fly in a GA or military aircraft, with the vast majority being GA.

Exactly. These supposed benefits of deregulated markets dissolve when the sellers have pricing power.

They were being pretty annoying, which is why the regulation went into place. The "wildness" is that they're openly trying to make it annoying again.

Yes, But no one wants to have to go to court or arbitration to get a refund on a service that the service provider cancelled.

If AA cancels my flight, I want my money back without having to ask for it. I don't want to have to submit an application to receive AA credits that expire in 6 months, and then have to initiate legal action to get my actual cash back. Or having them say that they rebooked me on a flight three days later so they are off the hook.

The current rules make it so that the customer has the power. I can still give AA the option of rebooking me or refunding me, but it is MY choice.

My worry is that this incentivizes airlines to overlook safety concerns because grounding a risky flight or taking extra time to deal with unscheduled maintenance downtime will cost them money. It's a guaranteed certainty that some people will die because of it. I'd rather risk 300 bucks than my life.

Airline travel is safer than it has ever been in its entire history. What is your evidence for this hypothesis?

Yep. I don't fly a ton, but I had a flight canceled by Alaska a couple of years ago. They refunded me so I wasn't actually out anything, but they also gave me a $100 credit in addition to the refund. I really tried, but since I don't live in Seattle and don't fly much, there was no way I could use that $100 credit without paying a whole lot of my own money too. It annoyed me to "throw away money", but the credit expired unused.

And what percentage of people will take them to court just to get them to refund their ticket?

Airlines have full time lawyers with nothing to do but push paper around.

Why are we making it harder for the consumer to resolve an issue when the flight is clearly cancelled?

They just want to force you into weird store-credit style refunds so that you cannot go to a competitor or choose not to travel.

> And what percentage of people will take them to court just to get them to refund their ticket?

If there is any upside to mandatory binding final arbitration, it's that proceedings are cheaper and quicker. It might be that the arbitrators decide to universally rule in favor of the airlines amidst unambiguous evidence that the airlines took money and canceled the service, but seems unlikely.

It's also a huge risk on the part of the airlines to decide that their official policy is to stiff customers and hope it works out in arbitration.

> Why are we making it harder for the consumer to resolve an issue when the flight is clearly cancelled?

Because we elected the guy who said he would, going so far as to ensure he had a majority in both houses of Congress.

> They just want to force you into weird store-credit style refunds so that you cannot go to a competitor or choose not to travel.

Lol yes that is exactly it. I wouldn't have written that stuff above if I knew you were going to correct yourself.

I agree with you on everything except ever flying American Airlines. I think most people would agree with you.

My evidence is the extensive history of corporations prioritizing profits over safety. The relative safety of air travel is not in dispute nor is it relevant to my point. If you give companies the option to choose they will always optimize for profits over safety.

There are so many things to know, the world moves fast, so everything keeps changing constantly. It’s impossible for people to keep up and instead of providing a service, some airlines are trying to benefit from it knowing that folks will not claim their refunds or fee meals etc.

I wish every flight cancellation and delay emails had FAQ style “what are my choices” section where you can see your right clearly.