The U.S. Department of Transportation on Thursday launched an airline customer service dashboard outlining the 10 largest U.S. carriers’ plans, including specifics on passenger meal or hotel voucher entitlements. The tool, announced two weeks ago by Secretary Pete Buttigieg, includes service changes made by nearly all of the covered airlines as a result of the announcement, according to DOT.
“All but one of the 10 largest U.S. airlines made significant changes to their plans to improve services provided to passengers when their flights are canceled or delayed because of an airline issue,” according to DOT, which said that Buttigieg also had sent a letter to each carrier urging them to improve their customer service plans prior to the dashboard release.
The agency gave an example that no airline had unconditionally guaranteed meal vouchers or hotels prior to the announcement, but now nine of the 10 guarantee meals and eight of the 10 guarantee hotel accommodations when an airline issue causes the delay or cancellation. For the meal voucher, the delay must be at least three hours in length. The hotel voucher comes into play when a passenger must stay overnight because of a cancellation.
These services might have been available previously, according to DOT, but passengers would have needed to know to ask for them.
Note that these offerings are for an airline’s “controllable” cancellations or delays, those that are “caused by the airline.” Examples include maintenance or crew problems, cabin cleaning, baggage loading and fueling, according to DOT. Weather is beyond an airline’s control, as are air traffic control issues, which several airline executives during earnings calls cited as a reason for some of the disruptions this summer.
The agency also is looking into strengthening protections for air ticket refunds and for insight on seat sizes. Both proposals have been published in the Federal Register and are available for public comment. The deadline for seat-size proposal comments is Nov. 1, and the deadline for refund comments is Nov. 22.