Originally Posted by
TommyC80
How much damage do these complaints cause? Would the DOT take a complaint about an issue like this seriously? I thought a DOT complaint would be more appropriate for a safety issue or blatant and extreme COC violation.
I've thought about doing this in the past on one or two occasions, but I figured it wasn't worth the effort.
I've noticed a recurrent misunderstanding of what complaints to the DOT accomplish. The DOT simply compiles and publishes the complaints every month and "charges" them against a specific carrier. The process isn't meant to trigger any kind of regulatory action against an airline. The DOT
claims that it could use information gained from the process for other, regulatory purposes--rule making; however, I think that claim is a stretch. The complaint mechanism is simply fodder for the news media.
Many media outlets cover the data published by the DOT and, if there's an interesting story, use the information as a basis for a story. For example, USA Today often covered DOT complaints in section B. At least once a year, the main news programs will comment on a spike in specific complaints.
I view the process as a way that frequent flyers could "communicate" with upper management at a given airline--it's the proverbial nuclear option. For example, say there was an orchestrated campaign to file hundreds of complaints to the DOT against a specific carrier in a given month and say that this flurry of complaints was accompanied by targeting messages to specific journalists that cover air travel, the ensuing publicity is guaranteed to get the attention of management--it's the proverbial David and Goliath story, the sort of story that, if handled correctly, could gain traction in the media.