The Transportation Department’s latest high-profile fine goes against Comair for violating denied-boarding rules. It’s a big ticket: $275,000, which, while significantly less than the record fine against Spirit Airlines late last year, could be the largest enforcement action for bad bumping practices.
transportation department
If you’ve ever complained about air travel — and who hasn’t? — then here’s your best chance in a generation to do something about it.
Ban peanuts? Really?
Here’s a new government rule that might surprise you: It would prohibit post-purchase price increases in air transportation or air tours by carriers and ticket agents.
Last week, we started dissecting the government’s plans to tighten the way in which airlines advertise their fares. But if you continue reading the proposed rulemaking, you’ll discover the Transportation Department wants to go further.
When you get a fare quote from an airline or online agency, you should expect to pay that price. Right?
The deeper I wade into the new airline passenger rules, the more I find myself wondering: Why do airlines have to be told to do this?
Talk is cheap. That’s the gist of the part of the latest government rulemaking that is likely to give airlines the biggest headache. Instead of just “strongly encouraging” the airlines to adopt customer service plans, the government wants them to put it in their contracts of carriage, the legal agreement between them and their customers.
From time to time, a consent order crosses my desk that’s just too funny to not write about. Like today’s ruling (PDF) against Falcon Air Express, a Miami-based airline whose claim to fame is running a wet T-shirt contest on a charter flight to Mexico.
Attention, air travelers: The government has your back.
Last week, several airlines added a $10 “miscellaneous” charge for flights on on Nov. 29, Jan. 2 and 3. — those are the peak travel days after Thanksgiving and New Years. The news sent the travel blogosphere into something of a frenzy. My colleague Janice Hough this morning predicted the “holiday surcharge” was only the beginning of a new fee orgy.
I’m on record as supporting a Passengers Bill of Rights. But today I’m changing my vote.
The Transportation Department this morning a sent a letter to Continental Airlines inquiring into the circumstances of its recent Continental/Express Jet flight 2816 extended delay. So what’s next? I asked Transportation Department spokesman Bill Mosley.
That would be JetBlue Airways, according to the latest Transportation Department figures. Flight 12 from New York to Syracuse was delayed on the tarmac 328 minutes on June 26, which makes it the tarmac delay winner of the month.
Can you think of a good reason to hold a flight on the tarmac for more than five hours? I can’t. But the passengers on Mesa Airlines flight 7262 from Washington Dulles to Rochester, NY, on May 29 may well be wondering. According to the Transportation Department, they waited 311 minutes before taking off.
Elliott is consumer advocate 
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