Sweeping pro-consumer passenger rules come into effect from 23rd August, 2011. US Dept of Transportation requires airlines to refund baggage fees for lost luggage and shell out considerably more for involuntarily bumping passengers on overbooked flights.
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s pro-consumer passenger rights come into effect from today, August 23.
New passenger rights will necessitate the airlines to refund baggage fees for lost checked luggage as well as to pay more for bumping involuntary passengers on overbooked flights.
The department can now also inflict hefty fines on international flights that wait on the airporttarmac for more than four hours. Carriers will additionally be required to clearly exhibit fee charged on everything from checking a bag to reserving a seat to buying food. The pro-passenger rules are formulated to shield airline travellers from unfair and deceptive practices.
Lost Luggage
Airlines will now have to refund baggage fees for lost luggage. Currently, the airline compensates travellers only for lost or damaged belongings.
New rules do not take into account those travellers whose baggage is delayed. In effect, only a very few percentage of travellers are perhaps going to benefit from this new rule. As per reports not more than 1% of the checked baggage is declared ‘lost’ by the airline and this process can itself take weeks.
It has been argued by the airlines that since there are no guarantee of the luggage travelling on the same flight with the passenger they must be allowed to keep the fee for delayed baggage.
Bumped From Flights
Travellers who are involuntarily deprived of boarding even when they are in a possession of a valid ticket will get considerably more compensation from airlines under the new rules. If an airline is not able to offer another flight to the passenger within two hours for domestic travel and four hours for international flights, the passenger will now be entitled to cash compensation of four times the value of ticket up to $1,300. The current decree requires the airline to pay double the ticket value up to $800 for long delays.
Compensation for the traveller who has been involuntarily bumped off from the flight is calculated on the basis of the fare for that particular flight and not the whole round-trip. Passengers must also keep in mind that airlines are obliged to pay them cash on the spot if they are bumped off involuntarily. There is no need for the passenger to agree upon some voucher that redeems against future flights with the airline.
This is widely seen as a move to discourage airlines from overbooking flights. The Department of Transportation has significantly increased bumping compensation couple of times now in past few years. As more costly it is for airlines to bump passengers, it is less convenient for them to overbook flights. Earlier, when it was cheap for the airlines to pay off bumped passengers, they used to make a lot of incentives by overbooking flights with passengers willing to pay extra and by simply bumping passengers with cheap flight tickets. But now it may prove to be very costly for the carriers to bump passengers with cheap tickets on flights.
As mentioned earlier, the new regulations also entail more fee-disclosure on the part of the airlines, effectively requiring them to make it easier to find on their websites.
Other Proposed Rules
There are several other rules that the Department of Transportation will look to implement from next year. These include:
- Travellers will be allowed to change or cancel reservations within 24 hours of booking with no a penalty fee, provided that the booking was made at least a week before departure.
- Airlines will be compelled to inform passengers of cancellations, diversions and delays of more than 30 minutes on an urgent basis.
- Carriers will be required to display all government taxes and fees in their advertised prices.
