The fight for fair treatment isn’t over once a battle is won—especially when powerful interests stand to benefit from keeping things unfair.
In the United States, travelers are facing the threat of watching hard-won consumer rights get rolled back.
Last week, Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta Air Lines, told investors how excited he is that the incoming Trump administration may scale back travelers’ consumer protections, calling that possibility “a breath of fresh air.”
Bastian’s remarks came days after the head of Southwest Airlines, Robert Jordan, similarly praised the incoming conservative administration in CEO code by suggesting Trump and co. would be “a little more business-friendly.”
On the surface, those comments may not seem too distressing.
But take a closer look at what these high-paid executives actually want to change. The ultimate objective appears to be a federal government that unties the hands of the major airlines and enables them to pocket your money even when their services fail you.
One of the rules the big airlines want gone is the new one requiring automatic refunds after canceled flights.
Currently, passengers in the United States are automatically entitled to a full refund for a flight that has been canceled or delayed by more than 3 hours (or 6 hours for an international flight).
Most passengers would agree that rule is a fair one and that it should remain non-negotiable. If an airline strands you at the airport and fails to deliver a promised flight, you should have the right to take your money to an airline that will meet its end of the bargain.
You and I want that. It makes perfect sense that you should be able to demand an automatic, no-fuss refund when an airline fails to render a product within a reasonable time frame.
But the executives at the big airlines don’t want that. Bastian has characterized much-needed reforms like that as a “level of overreach.”
Overreach? Protecting you from being stranded without a refund is overreach?
You know better than that.
The Department of Transportation has also required much clearer pricing communication from airlines, ordering them to notify would-be customers of all fees from the very start of the booking process.
But the airlines would rather keep hiding those fees from you. Delta is so averse to price transparency that it’s one of the carriers litigating against the government to block the new rule.
An industry group representing big airline money has claimed, bizarrely and condescendingly, that notifying customers about hidden junk fees “will only serve to complicate the buying process.”
Do you, as a customer, think that knowing the true price of a ticket ahead of time will overcomplicate things for you? Could you handle that?
The airlines’ reluctance to be flexible and forthcoming with passengers—and to encourage the incoming president to bend the rules in their favor—is understandable given the now-infamous systemwide meltdowns carriers have been suffering at regular intervals in recent years.
There is so much for the airlines to answer for. In July, Delta endured days of cancellations and failures, stranding hundreds of thousands of passengers, after the company’s computer systems failed. The Department of Transportation is now looking into whether the meltdown violated consumer protection rules. No doubt Bastian would prefer that investigation just go away.
Southwest has had disastrous service collapses of its own, including one at the peak of 2022 holiday travel that resulted in a $140 million civil penalty.
It seems that Southwest’s CEO thinks that being held accountable for failure is the same thing as being unfriendly to business.
The passengers Southwest stranded know better. They know Jordan’s demand for “business-friendly” rules is just another way to demand impunity whenever the company does wrong by customers.
The airlines have also been shifting the goalposts in frequent flyer programs, devaluing points and changing redemption minimums at a whim.
Current Department of Transportation officials would like to know more about how and whether airlines are breaking any laws by making those changes, but the airlines want to halt an investigation into that, too.
Delta’s Bastian, for the record, is the highest-paid airline CEO in the country. He made a reported $34.2 million this year. Jordan at Southwest made a reported $9.3 million.
So whenever executives complain about government “bureaucracy” and clamor for regulatory “fresh air,” keep in mind who’s actually breathing easier than you.
Do not relinquish your consumer protections easily. Do not allow a high-paid CEO to use slick words to distract you from your consumer rights. Remember that CEOs do not always want the same things that you do.
Keep alert, travelers. The airlines’ leaders are declaring their intentions. They’ll send you backwards if you allow them to.