Comments on: It’s official: airlines must double compensation for bumped passengers

By: tracey griffin

tracey griffin — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 00:22:39 +0000

we are a family of 4 just been bumped off our flight home. it took delta 2 days to get us home and over 10 hours of queuing for hotel vouchers/checking in over the two additional days thats without the waiting on the standby list.

we were not given a cash option only $600 vouchers to be used within the year at the delta.com website. i find it very frustrating that when we checked in at orlando for our connecting flight the words ‘seat request’ meant you didn.t have a seat even though we had booked this holiday early in the year. on arriving at atlanda the 48 hour nightmare started. more frustrating is knowing that american standby only passanger were borded on the plane before british passanger who had been bumped from mondays flight and put on standby. the more you complained the more delayed you became as the priory passanger list seemed to be at the descretion og the staff.

delta have not replied to my emails, does anyone know how to get a full cash compensation.

By: Jasper

Jasper — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:33:12 +0000

@ Tabby: It sounds odd that extra fines will lead to lower prices, but it will force airlines to do better.

@ Savivki: It is sad that there is no stipulation on how the money is to be returned. I believe the infamous EU rule said that the money has to be returned to the customers credit card within some period, a month or so (Chris, correct me if I’m wrong). That puts the burden on the airlines. Without such a rule, I am sure the airlines with find a process more diabolical than the most difficult “mail-in-rebate” to get your money back. Something like:

“Customers must contact the airline within 24h of being bumped via www:misspelledairlinename.com, and download further insturctions there (a 95 page manual full of legal language). Then the customer must mail in their documentation between 2 and 5 weeks after the event (address in Northern Samoa), including a pre-stamped envelop with their home-address. The airline will send back a check (only valid for two weeks after bing issued) after a reasonable evaluation period (say 9 months).”

By: r.savicki

r.savicki — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:01:16 +0000

The airlines might be required to provide more compensation, but nowhere does is stipulate that this must be in CASH (or check).
So……you will probably just get a larger ‘coupon’ for use on the airline which has already ticked you off! Lots of good that does. I think if the airlines had to give actual money, as oppossed to ‘script’ which is cumbersome to use (you cannot usually book online and have to go to the airport for ticketing ) I think a lot of that goes unused which leaves the airline off the hook. So Thanks a Lot guys!!!

By: Tabby Stone

Tabby Stone — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:58:16 +0000

In the blog entry today about the raising compensation for bumping, etc. you referred to a page http://www.dot.gov/affairs/dot5308.htm

There was a quote there from Secretary Peters, “This proposal increases choices for passengers and adds competition, which is proven to lower fares.”

Is this attitude on the part of the transportation secretary likely to be part of the government’s position on the merger of Delta and Northwest?

As a consumer, i think it’s a dumb idea to take two airlines that aren’t doing well and try to merge them into one bigger airline. I can’t quite figure out how there would be any more economies of scale than either line has now. They might be able to get rid of a minority of employees by combining operations at some airports, and some corporate functions, but I can’t see where any great savings would come about. The only advantage is that as there are less airlines, they can get away with charging more and more for less service.