It’s been building for years, but the pandemic has made it very clear: Airline customers have very few rights.
Maybe something will finally change.
President Biden issued an executive order to get the wheels turning at the Transportation Department on several airline issues. And more than a dozen consumer advocates met last week with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to plead their case for what’s wrong with air travel.
In a statement, Mr. Buttigieg said the Biden administration is starting to work on passenger rights. “Air travel is a vital American industry that has withstood a hard period, and travelers deserve to have their lives, their rights and their pocketbooks protected every time they fly,” he said. “We will continue to protect air travelers at each step of their journey.”
Whether anything comes of it remains to be seen—airlines have a lot of juice in Washington, D.C. Previous passenger-rights attempts have ended up ignored or watered down to insignificance by pressure from the airline industry.