Passengers wait to board a Southwest flight in Dallas on Dec. 25, 2022, after the flight was delayed six hours because of a shortfall of flight attendants. The flight was then canceled. Photo credit: John McDonnell/The Washington Post
The Department of Transportation under President Donald Trump is scrapping a Biden-era plan that sought to require airlines to compensate passengers for airline-caused flight delays or cancellations, according to a document posted Thursday.
The proposal, introduced for public comment in December in the final weeks of the Biden administration, called for airlines to pay passengers between $200 and $775 in cash and to cover any meals, hotels and transportation expenses related to a flight disruption within the carrier’s control, such as a mechanical issue. The proposal would have also mandated that airlines rebook passengers on the next available flight at no additional cost.
“I don’t think we can underestimate how huge this would have been,” said William McGee, senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Liberties Project. He said consumer advocates have been discussing the possibility for about two decades, since similar protections were enacted in Europe. “It would just basically make us on par with much of the world.”
Officials said Thursday in the document withdrawing the proposal that doing so was “consistent with Department and administration priorities.”
The Department of Transportation under President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg repeatedly sought to expand consumer protections through regulations that streamlined the refund process for passengers and required more transparency around airline fees. “I really want this to be known as the period when we did the biggest expansion in passenger rights since deregulation, and I think we can hit that mark,” Buttigieg told The Washington Post last year.
But Trump has spent much of the first year of his second term in office pushing a deregulatory agenda and rolling back policies proposed and enacted under the previous administration.
Industry trade group Airlines for America opposed many of the Biden administration’s efforts to regulate air travel, calling them “shortsighted” and warning that they “would inevitably drive up costs and reduce choices for the consumer.”
“We are encouraged by this Department of Transportation reviewing unnecessary and burdensome regulations that exceed its authority and don’t solve issues important to our customers,” the group said in a statement responding to the withdrawal of the compensation proposal.
The group added that it looked forward to working with the Transportation Department on “implementing President Trump’s deregulatory agenda.”
Some airlines already offer food, lodging or transportation vouchers for canceled or delayed flights, according to the Transportation Department, though none of the country’s largest airlines provide cash compensation for cancellations, and just four offer credit or travel vouchers. The Biden-era compensation proposal would have codified these practices and created consumer protections similar to what is in place in the United Kingdom as well as in European Union member states.
“The airlines don’t have to offer these types of considerations to customers, but if they’ve made the commitment, then they do have to follow through,” Teresa Murray, consumer watchdog director for the Public Interest Research Group, wrote in an email. “The proposed rule likely would have required some of these considerations from all of the airlines, regardless whether they agreed. It’s disheartening that this idea got squashed before the contours were even really considered.”
Buttigieg responded to the decision to roll back his compensation proposal on social media on Thursday.
“Our billionaire President put an airline lobbyist in charge of the Department of Transportation,” he wrote, referring to Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy, who according to disclosure filings had represented the Partnership for Open and Fair Skies, a coalition of U.S. airlines, as part of his time working for the lobbying firm BGR Group.
“So no, this is not a surprise.”
