Comment from John Buchan

In the last 30 months, airlines have received billions of dollars $, in Federal funding. Part of that funding was to prevent airlines from laying off employees. But the airlines did lay off employees! The airlines also created strong incentives or downright forced employees to retire. This created a huge talent and knowledge drain. Airline management knew all the issues they created. Management continued to create schedules they knew their companies could not possibly fly, but they did it anyway!
The proposed changes should be treated as a baseline. First, all tickets including basic economy, should be completely refundable. Airline credits are just a way for airlines to keep customers’ funds captured for the airlines’ uses. Second, flight time changes and cancelations need to be better compensated. If the flights are delayed to a domestic destination for 3 hours or more OR 6 hours or more for international destinations, there needs to be a minimum cash on the spot compensation. NO miles and NO travel credits! The airlines need to know that there will penalties for past bad, unethical behaviors. Now compensation should also be different for passengers at their origins versus passengers at their destination who are returning to their home airport. Compensation for passengers overseas should be higher. That would include hotel nights, additional transportation and meals. Not that passengers at originating airports do not have expenses. Because they do and need to be compensated for extra parking, etc. This new compensation does in no way, let the airlines off the hook for transporting passengers to their destinations. People paid for a ticket for service and it needs to occur! This compensation is to be additional and not punitive to the passengers.
Most delays these past 4 months have been created by the airlines’ poor planning. Many times airlines have claimed that weather caused the delays. While in some instances this was true, but most delays this past 4 months were not weather related.
I make many reservations 11 months in advance of travel. Domestic carriers have changed the flight times absolutely no less than 4 times per trip, on average. But many trips have 6 or more flight time changes. While my reservations on foreign carriers hardly ever change. Why? Because domestic carriers have made no effort to run reliable operations. This has to end! I have had flight time changes of hours, morning to evening. I have to call and complain to get the changes fixed. But sometimes there are no other flights available. These flight changes have made connections in hubs to less than 45 minutes. It has to stop. I know airlines are sophisticated operations, but why were there less of these issues pre-Covid? Simple, airline management greed!

Comment Date:2022-08-05T04:00:00Z

Comment On Document ID:DOT-OST-2022-0089-0170

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Comment from Suneel Gupta

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Comment Date:2022-08-05T04:00:00Z

Comment On Document ID:DOT-OST-2022-0080-0011

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Comment from Alex Spann

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Comment Date:2022-08-05T04:00:00Z

Comment On Document ID:DOT-OST-2022-0080-0010

Open regulations.gov Docket Folder