The DOT Camel's Nose Is In The Tent.

In any situation, it’s a leadpipe cinch that whenever appointed politicians get involved, it’s not good for business or for the customer.

In the airline industry, it is management’s responsibility to assure that how the passenger is treated does not set off a nationwide jihad demanding that the feds "do something" to "protect their rights." Otherwise, everybody loses with the injection of usually irresponsible trendy and woke nonsense from the appointees in Washington.

It's pretty obvious that with delays, cancellations, market shifts, ATC meltdowns, added to the normal dose of weather problems, the natives - consumers - are more than restless.

It's how these situations are handled that's the problem. What has come home to roost is the enormous cost of straightjacket airline customer service rules, fees even for things like a seat in the front half of the economy cabin, confusing and often "gotcha" applications of same, and in many cases hiring the cheapest independent vendor to deliver ground operations.

The results are outlandish customer experiences. One report was the passenger who was informed his lost bag was found at the airport. The response from the airline - a stock probably recorded one - was to go to the airport to retrieve it. But the bag was at Heathrow and the passenger was back home in North Carolina. A one-off? Yup. But the media covers these like a cheap tabloid chasing a B-level movie star.

Regardless, the airline industry allowed this consumer and political mob mentality to fester.

So, enter the clowns. In the past week, there was yet another milestone in the evolving post-CCP-pandemic airline industry.

The DOT issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making that, shock! shock! largely makes solid sense. Or, maybe just the surface. They look like a solid blow in favor of the consumer. But they get involved in airline operational issues the DOT knows little about. The shame is that the airline industry should not have let things get to that point.

Abusing The Situation. The flying public, by the nature of air transportation, is essentially and literally trapped. They have to follow rules for safety. They also have to follow the airline’s specific customer service rules. It’s a delicate line to walk between assuring safety and not making passengers feel that they’ve just entered a minimum-security prison.

But that is pretty much how consumers are looking at it. Airlines indeed are stuck with a lot of emerging operational issues. It's how they are addressed that is giving the politicians running the DOT a great soapbox opening.

In too many cases, customer service policies have degenerated from making the air travel experience easier and more comfortable, to instead assuring that revenues are maximized. Fare rules, fees, adding confusing no-frills fares, etc. Passengers will toe the line. At least carriers have moved away form cattle-barn boarding pens. Mostly. But the philosophy behind these programs is the core of the current consumer unrest. Passengers are to be herded to accommodate the airline.

Airlines: Stop Cornering Customers. Passengers don’t have much recourse, and the result can be demands for outside intervention. So, when it’s intervention from the DOT, that’s not good.

But it’s really not good when what the DOT is suggesting are things that seem reasonable and which the industry has failed to address, but in fact will make the situation worse.

Here's the genesis of this messy hoedown.

Post-CCP-Covid: Brilliant Operational Planning. Not So With Customer Relations. The events over the past two years have led the industry to this point.

It is clear that the airline industry has been brilliant and innovative in getting through the worst crisis since Wilbur & Orville. But at the same time, they failed to aggressively adjust customer service policies and procedures to accommodate the chaos and confusion naturally attendant to what the pandemic did to the business.

It has continued with the advent of pilot shortages, inability to operationally recover quickly from off-schedule episodic event. Insufficient customer service staff. Lack of flight alternatives.

That leads to news stories of klutzy airline responses to service failures. The expected life forms in congress and at “consumer” organizations now calling for regulation and revenge and other poorly-researched but very trendy solutions.

Filling A Vacuum - Offering Solutions When Airlines Abdicate Control. The DOT has issued a 70+ page NPRM covering a wide range of fallout from the past months of airport chaos, cancellations, delays and other fun things.

The main impetus has been how airlines have handled consumers due to the changes wrought by reaction and regulatory responses due to the gift that keeps on giving, the CCP-induced Wuhan pandemic.

Post Covid Refunds: Like Arguing Over The Bar Bill On The Hindenburg. As the travel market collapsed in early 2020, there was a massive Martian fire drill because of confused determinations regarding “voluntary” passenger booking cancellations due to fear of infection v those that were the result of plunging traffic and airline-determined flight cancellations.

It was not the airline industry’s proudest period. We were in a near-panic epidemic, and when consumers were afraid to travel, that was not the time to whip out and lecture them on the Contract of Carriage. But that’s what pretty much happened in too many cases.

Stories abounded regarding real, imagined and – indeed – concocted decision outrages by airlines in regard to refunds. In the midst of a near-total shutdown of the air transportation system, there were far too many media stories of consumers getting the “gotcha” treatment, with some airlines splitting hairs between whether the refund was due or not, when flight schedules were being slashed - often at the last minute - to almost nothing, anyway.

Now fast forward to the last six months. The pilot shortage and other factors have resulted in cancellations, both well in advance of flight date, and also right up to post-boarding. This led to the traditional voucher offer – where instead of cash refunds due to failure to operate, the grand alternative was giving the affected consumer the promise of the value to be applied to a future flight.

Oh, yeah, and a lot of them had expiration dates. This was in place before the CCP-pandemic. But this time it was on a huge scale.

Now this gets to the core of an airline business policy that was, frankly, pretty huckster long before the pandemic. And that is the implied determination by airlines that a booking to a destination is the consumer’s contractual obligation to go there. Period. Whenever.

So, if there was a snowstorm, a blizzard, an attack by Klingons or other reason the airline couldn’t deliver the flight on the date promised, they still would graciously allow the consumer to use the transportation later… but an actual refund wasn’t usually part of the discussion. You booked it, pal. You gotta go or lose the dough.

This is flat out abominable. People book air travel to get to someplace usually for a date-certain event. When the airline can’t deliver the transportation reasonably within the timeframes booked, that cruise ship connection still sailed from Fort Lauderdale, the wedding still took place, the crocodile tears shed at not-so-missed Aunt Verna’s funeral are done with, and the business meeting was held and now over.

So, if it’s due to the airline’s inability to deliver transportation generally as promised, the situation is what lawyers might define as a “change of consideration.” What was promised was not delivered. Something else is offered in its place that does not represent what the consumer paid for.

But instead of making the option of a refund clear, the industry has generally tried to simply offer to let the consumer go some other time, or maybe get a voucher for a future flight.

This is not a situation that makes the public all warm and fuzzy about air travel or the companies that provide it.

Confusing & Sometimes Arbitrary Rules Administered By Non-Employees. Toss in another fun factor. Increasingly, the customer/airline interface on the ground is increasingly a "customer/low-bid-vender-interface." So, the person dealing with the confused, concerned, or apoplectic customer at that ticket counter might not even work for the airline.

They may be fine folks, but at the end of the day, they have no skin in the game if that ticked-off family of four ever flies the airline again. They can’t have pride in a product they have no interest in. In most cases, their “career” working there ends when the vendor’s contract come up for bid in two years.

The Camel’s Nose Is In The Tent. And He’s Planning To Set Up Housekeeping. This has gotten out of control to the point that Buttigieg and the DOT are getting involved.

The new NPRM is pretty clear about the voucher thing. It’s a cash refund unless the customer wants a voucher instead. That should have been made clear by the airline industry. Now, some political appointees are doing it.

But that regulatory snout gets in further. If the flight is delayed more than three hours, consumers can demand a refund. That ought to be fun at a major airport when 10, 15, or more folks on every flight during an extended weather or ATC delay want to get their money back. Or. when the incoming equipment had a mechanical earlier in the day and lags the schedule at more than one airport destination. Whatever, this will mean additional burden on the airport operation.

Good Thing Small RJs Are Being Retired? If the aircraft is downgraded to one that has less amenities (however that may be defined), the consumer has recourse, according to the NPRM. Is a shift from an A220 to a CRJ - from @ 19 inch wide seats to <17 inches - a downgrade in amenities?

Okay, what about passengers who paid an extra $20 for a (jokingly labled) "choice seat" simply because it was in row 15 instead of 33? A shift to another aircraft without that paid-for perk might be called a reason for a full refund.

There are a bunch of other rules, most of which are - shockingly - attached to pleas in the NPRM for folks to submit comments to help the DOT define what they are.

The Inmates In Airline Alcatraz Are Still Unhappy. To be fair, it is noted that several airlines have now moved to address the situation. But the issue is settled… the DOT is going to be a lot more involved.

All of this DOT stuff is there because the airline industry too often forgot about making things easy for the customer, instead of a fee-based ATM machine. (A bit overstated, but a lot of people may see it that way.)

Nature abhors a vacuum. The vacuum left by airline customer service policies has just been filled.

By the DOT.

The ball is in the airline industry’s court. Make air travel less of a guessing game, or the DOT will supply their own answers.