A site that advocates for you
Their advocacy results in big, embarrassing airline fines. They’ve helped create federal agencies that make air travel safer. And they’ve brought competition and transparency to the skies.
Don’t look now, but your consumer rights are vanishing.
Airline travel can be stressful. You get to the airport hours before your flight, endure the security checks and then spend time trying to find a seat in the departure terminal. And you spend a small fortune on something that is alleged to be food. Then, just when you thought the worst was over, you find out you might not be going anywhere because your flight is overbooked.
American travelers fear they’ll be left to fend for themselves when they hit the road this year — and for good reason.
It started with a proposed bill to set minimum seat sizes on planes. Then a senator took on hotel resort fees, and another put airline surcharges in his crosshairs. And then the Senate released one of the most passenger-friendly Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bills in a generation.
The resolutions of our advocacy cases almost never get overturned. But, as Ian Fleming might have said, “Never say never.”
Remember what flying used to be like?
Something smelled funny about Judy Ortiz recent Bermuda cruise on Norwegian Cruise Line’s Breakaway. Literally.
Do you have the right to room on a plane?
Pat Busovicki’s Eastern Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Dream almost ended in a nightmare.
If you’re staying at a hotel, your rights are spelled out in your state’s lodging laws and in the property’s terms and conditions. But don’t lean on those for better customer service. I explain what to do.
Information is power.
Beyond the fact that you don’t have too many, what do you know about your rights as an airline passenger? If you said “not much,” then you’re in good company.
Maybe it was the string of customer-service disasters, starting with the Costa Concordia tragedy last year and leading up to the recent Carnival Triumph “poop” cruise, on which passengers were left adrift in the Gulf of Mexico for five days without working toilets.
There are at least two sides to every story, and in the recent controversy involving kids and airline seating, the
Here’s another episode in the “Our Lawyers Interpret EU 261 Differently” drama that has been playing itself out on this site since the controversial European passenger-rights law passed in 2004.
It looks as if the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill can fly, after all.
The European Union’s new regulation on airline ticket transparency, which requires airlines to quote a fare including all taxes, fees and surcharges, went into effect Nov. 1. How will the new rules affect air travelers here and in Europe? I asked Meglena Kuneva, the EU commissioner for consumer affairs.