$7M seems small. I assume the airlines make more money by not providing refunds and will continue to do so at the expense of small fines.
U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds
151–160 of 242 posts
Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds
#152Another case where EU has this settled. If an airline cancels a flight, they are obligated to refund the money in the same payment method, or book another flight, depending what the passenger chooses. They have to provide accommodation in a hotel if needed & you can request compensation up to 600 euros if the cancellation/delay was done in short notice.
It only works in theory and with good airlines.
4 months and still waiting for my Lufthansa refund (4000 eur) and no sign of compensation...
They ignore till you take it to the court.
Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm actually fairly upset when airlines _don't_ do this. They're just leaving money on the table. If you want to pick your seat, pay for it.
"We will actively make your life worse unless you pay us a premium in exchange for not doing that" is a terrible way to run any part of a society. If that's just how businesses are expected to behave, then we need to find ways to change that as a society.
There are classes of service and product just about everywhere.
Basically everyone flying coach on a commercial aircraft has a deliberately worse experience than if they paid for business class. The alternative is to have a single level of coach service only (which is fairly common on regional jets) or a single level of business class only service (which is rare--BA LCY to JFK as far as I know although I'm not sure that even exists any longer).
Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I long ago concluded that TSA is mostly a jobs program, not a security program.
I’m not against government jobs programs. Just wish it was something useful day to day, like healthcare, versus security theater.
I'd rather just provide UBI. Pay them to do nothing instead of paying them to make everybody else's lives worse.
Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> major TSA delays. This infuriates me. Last week I was stuck in line for TSA for an hour and a half at Sea-Tac. The TSA clowns had one guy looking at the X-rays of luggage at the speed of molasses. Am I to believe that the TSA, FAA and airlines can't coordinate to determine when gluts of incoming passengers are expected? Bullshit. Why didn't they have more TSA workers on shift? Because they don't give a shit, nothin…
Airport security was much better when it was private security not government security. At least privately security had alignment with airport customer service. Airports just have to deal with TSA BS now. I like to remind people, especially kids that don't know different, that the TSA was imposed on us and air travel used to be so much better.
It's actually one of the reasons I'm hesitant at being pro-public transit.
Last thing I need is a TSA equivalent pat down for entering a bus or metro because the government decided it wants to.
Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds
#156When COVID caused a trip I had planned to be cancelled, I had flights with Iceland Air, TAP Air, Easyjet, and Brussels Airlines... - Iceland Air and Easyjet issued refunds quickly - Brussels took a few months, but communicated proactively that they were working on it and provided updates without me reaching out - TAP never picked up the phone and I ended up having to force a charge after every other airline had come…
> TAP never picked up the phone and I ended up having to force a charge after every other airline had come through with a refund... Same happened to me. And I even called an additional time and only dealt with them in Portuguese hoping I might get somewhere with that tactic. Nope. Called, emailed, tweeted, you name it. No luck. Ryanair was pretty bad too. I spent a few weeks trying to book a short, direct flight betw…
I had a few flights cancelled with Ryanair too. Of course they make it hard to get a refund and suggest you take credit instead (which if it was valid for a long period I would have, but it expired after 1 year), however eventually they did give me a full refund.
Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
I expect they would detain you, force you to miss your flight, but not actually fine you. Without actually charging you with anything despite the threats, they avoid having their bullshit rule challenged in court.
If I ever come into possession of fuck you money, I intend to set up an organization whose mission is to buy cheap plane tickets that people are not intended to fly on, and then pay and instruct people on how to screw with the TSA completely legally.
It would probably be more effective to fund a few senators and congress people on the condition that they amend the The Aviation and Transportation Security Act.
Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
> with a legal system I knew maybe I'd fight it more For future reference, Airhelp will fight it for you [1]. [1] https://www.airhelp.com/en/
A private company startup to protect consumer rights from other private companies? Easily most American thing I've seen this week.
> most American thing I've seen
I'll let their Berlin-based team know :).
Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but that was then and this is now. I guess it's simply not possible to get it back into the "discourse" as a thing that should be changed.
It's a worldwide thing. EU airport security is even stricter and they're not going to let go now.
In most European countries this is done by private companies and they are really efficient. Rarely waiting time is more than 5-10 minutes in.
Re: U.S. fines airlines more than $7M for not providing refunds
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Last year I made the mistake of flying up to visit family on Christmas Eve. The TSA line wrapped around the entire airport. Luckily I made it just barely in time. I was already delayed when a nasty accident shit down the interstate and added an extra hour to my airport trip.
That's what you get for not arriving at the airport six hours before your flight /s
Sad thing is that the system constantly says that unsarcastically.
Airlines, TSA, and airport messaging constantly remind me to be hours early and to anticipate long security lines.