What We Should Demand With The Airline Bailouts
The Government is inching closer and closer to approving a massive Covid-19 stimulus package. While I don’t want to dig into the full blown package I would like to focus on the airline bailout portion of it. It appears that $25 Billion of stimulus package is earmarked airlines in the form of preferred stock. There is no doubt that the airline industry has been hit hard by the virus outbreak and I understand why they are a part of the stimulus package. Having said that I think there are certain things we should demand with the airline bailouts. If they are going to get public funds then they should come with some strings attached.
What I Would Like To See From The Airlines
I don’t want to get into the debate on whether or not the airlines deserve the bailouts. Many people have argued that they should have been holding onto their cash instead of buying back billions in stock. That is a fair point and I even like Mark Cuban’s request of stopping share buybacks for any company that gets funds. But I really want to focus on what we, the consumer and the people funding this bailout, should get in return.
Cancellation & Delay Protections
Flight cancellation protections are something that should have happened long ago. The European Union instilled these regulations some time ago (EU 261) and even Canada has upped their game in terms of customer protections. The only rules we have in place right now is that airlines have to offer to get you to your destination at some point or give you a refund. That can consist of telling you we can’t get you home for 3 more days, sorry. That is completely unacceptable. There needs to be firm laws in place for cancellations and delays.
People can not afford to take 3 days off of work because your plane broke down, or because your crew timed out. A lot of the time the airline won’t offer customers any sort of compensation when this happens, and when they do it is sometimes a completely worthless voucher. I want firm rules in place that say what we are owed and what triggers the compensation. This will encourage airlines to take better care of their customers and to find better solutions when things go wrong.
Loyalty Account Protections
Next up I would like loyalty accounts to get consumer protections. These are huge profit machines for the companies and they have all of the power in the equation. If they want to shut down your account and take your hard earned points they can at any time. They don’t even need to give you a reason. As we start to get taxed for some of these currencies I think we should also get protections. They are highly valuable to the company and to the consumer so lets start treating them as such. Put in some mandatory protections that give consumers an opportunity to at least dispute nefarious actions.
Cash Refunds Not Vouchers
If the airlines get this money I would like to see them offer to buy up everyone’s voucher who had their flight cancelled recently. Many people do not realize they are entitled to a full refund to your payment source when flights are cancelled so they took the airline’s voucher instead. Enforce a buyback scenario for these people so they can get their hard earned money back. Or the vouchers should all be required to last until the end of 2021 if that isn’t feasible for cash flow. We don’t even know when we will be able to travel again so how does it make sense to put 60 or 90 day expiration windows on some of these.
Eliminate Change Fees Until This Is All Over (Including Award Bookings)
I hate change fees but I understand them somewhat. I think they can be overly punitive but I don’t think we will ever get rid of them. Even though Southwest doesn’t have them and flourishes, it appears everyone else is just about that money.
What I would like to see is for these to be eliminated for the next several months, until things get back to normal. I don’t want to rely on the company’s goodwill because that can change in a moment. And please make this enforceable on award bookings too. United has been playing all kinds of games with awards. Refusing to refund points without a $150 change fee even for flights THEY CANCELED. It is insane and it needs to stop, especially if they take stimulus money.
Final Thoughts
Now I know a lot of this is a pipe dream but I think some of it should be done as a bare minimum. I think most likely would be requiring free changes and cancellations for the foreseeable future. What I would like to see most is consumer protections for airline delays and cancellations.
What do you think we should demand with the airline bailouts? Which one from my list is most important to you?
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I think all baggage and seat fees should be eliminated.
That would be nice. Go back to the old days of flat – bundled pricing.
You make some perfectly reasonable points that would help level the playing field from being quite so skewed in favor of the airlines. Which is why this will never happen in this administration. To put it mildly, the current administration has not prioritized consumer protections over concerns about big business.
Fair points – hopefully someone makes this a priority in the future.
Let parents sit with their children.
Great one Ann – that should be required even with basic economy tickets. It is a safety issue really.
Refusing to refund points without a $150 change fee even for flights THEY CANCELED.
really? Loco
Yup – it is crazy