U.S. Transportation Department Plans Penalties for Poor Performing Airlines
Jackie Reddy June 22, 2022
U.S. Department of Transportation Building
The Associated Press reports Buttigieg met virtually with a number of heads of major carriers on Thursday to verify the measures that airlines are taking in order to keep operations running throughout summer. Speaking of the meeting between himself and the CEOs, the agency reports that Buttigieg told NBC News, “I let them know that this is a moment when we are really counting on them to deliver reliably for the traveling public.”
Buttigieg Holding Carriers Responsible For Poor Performance
On Thursday alone, the AP reported that about 1,500 flights were canceled due to bad weather on the East Coast. Buttigieg himself was impacted by these cancelations and had to drive from Washington to New York after his flight was grounded.
This round of disruption comes weeks after just under 3,000 flights were scrapped around Memorial Day weekend. Buttigieg has urged carriers to ensure that they can cope with passenger demand – which has surged with the easing of the COVID-19 pandemic – with the personnel and resources that they currently have. Additionally, he is pressing airlines to take on more staff in customer service roles to help further ease the situation.
It’s possible that Buttigieg and the US Department of Transportation (DOT) may also turn to enforcement actions – which may result in fines – in order to enhance the customer service standards of carriers. However Buttigieg has said that he is waiting to see how carriers perform during the rest of the summer period before turning to any further measures.
While seasonal storms and bad weather have had an impact on flight cancelations in recent weeks, carriers admit to having been taken aback by the speed at which travel demand has recovered from the pandemic. As AP acknowledges, many are now struggling to swiftly replace lost staff – especially pilots – and this has had a knock-on impact on operations from a customer service perspective. But while pilots can take months to recruit and train, the DOT maintains that customer service staff can be quickly and seamlessly added to personnel rosters to bolster airline performance and keep travelers happy.
Feature image courtesy: kmf164/flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
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As long as the "fines" go to the government.
The "Party of the People" would never dare suggest actually compensating the fliers footing the bills and suffering from this. Oh no.
The people they care about don't often fly, unless it's a government funded flight to redistribute them from the border states to the interior.
Apparently our leaders, in pursuit of their borderless carbon free leftist utopia don't see much benefit to making the bougoisie whole.
"...Pete Buttigieg has inferred that his department will hold airlines accountable..."
Inferred?
(Sorry, I can't help myself.)
He has to look important and 'busy' to keep that position.Airlines/airports CANNOT FIND WORKERS. There are staff shortages around the world.
Get a clue Pete!
This isn't Wendy's, they're not going to find the workers 2 hours before the flight if they "CANNOT FIND WORKERS". Don't schedule flights that you can't staff, and don't wait until the last minute to cancel flights that you can't staff.
Get a clue RRROOO!
Airlines need to fly the schedules they can service reliably with the number of workers they actually have. If they can't hire workers, perhaps schedules need to be cut further, but better they be cut well in advance than cancelled at the last second.
becoming a worry if will get to place i paid for on days off holiday weekend and lose money hotels reserved at destination airlines blame FAA is easy for them need more secure ticket laws for airlines cancel flights
Captain oblivious strikes again. Of course adding more staff will help the situation, if it were that easy all the airlines would have already done that.
There are people available hire, they just want pay that exceeds the current pay rate for those jobs -- and the airlines won't pay that rate in an attempt to keep payroll costs down (if you pay your new call center staff $20/hr then all existing employees making $15/hr demand a raise).
So it IS relatively easy, it's just expensive, as is fuel these days. Managing airline profits is all about managing costs...
To add, once you raise everyone's salery to match the demands of the noobs, it's impossibl to restore it to normal levels once this is over, resulting in ticket prices never recinding.