DOT tips

Good morning from Skift. It’s Friday, December 15. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

The Department of Transportation announced Tuesday it would partner with 18 state attorney generals to investigate airline consumer violations.

As the airline industry grapples with delayed aircraft orders and rising operating costs, Delta Air Lines has stayed above the fray. 

The American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA) claims that American Airlines has removed 40% of its fare inventory from distribution channels used by travel agents and travel management companies following the implementation of new systems with the International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) New Distribution Capability (NDC) technology.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said it screened 2.56 million air passengers on Sunday, the highest number since December 2019 and the busiest day since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Travel agents could bring a real-world perspective to complex rules shaping the protection of air travel passengers, as part of a modernization proposal for the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) watchdog for aviation consumer protection.

In 2014, at the behest of Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), the DOT’s Office of Inspector General began an audit of U.S. frequent flyer programs, and the DOT’s monitoring thereof, with a particular focus on unfair and deceptive practices (summary, with a link to the full .pdf report, here). The audit results were published this month, with the following headline: “Improvements needed in DOT’s process for identifying unfair or deceptive practices in airline frequent flyer programs.”

To all appearances, the hot-button issue of inflight phone calls has been settled. If you’ve flown on a U.S. carrier lately, you’ve almost certainly heard no one yakking on a cellphone or other mobile device while airborne, and you might well assume that there’s an outright ban on inflight calling.

Smoking traditional tobacco-packed cigarettes has been banned on most U.S. commercial flights since the late 1980s. But the “No Smoking” signs didn’t specifically prohibit the latest nicotine-delivery device, e-cigarettes.

In what will likely be one of its final major moves under the current Obama administration, the Department of Transportation this week revealed a new set of rules governing various aspects of airline behavior. Here’s how DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx described the new rules:

United has come in for more than its fair share of criticism lately, from travelers, from employees, from Wall Street. Now, the Department of Transportation can be added to the list of United-bashers.

The debate over inflight phone-calling raged hot and heavy two years ago, with the opposing forces seemingly gaining the upper hand. The Association of Flight Attendants called for an outright ban on the calls. A no-call bill was introduced in Congress. The DOT signaled its general opposition to inflight cell use on safety grounds, in particular that it would distract passengers from attending to routine safety announcements and flight crew instructions in emergency situations. And several airline CEOs pledged it would never happen on their planes.

Four airlines—United, American, Southwest, and Alaska—have been fined by the Department of Transportation (DOT) for “providing inaccurate information to passengers about how much compensation they could potentially receive for being denied boarding against their will, or “bumped” on oversold flights, and for lost, damaged, or delayed baggage.”

When it comes to commercial air transportation, consumers have two bottom lines. First, it must be cheap. And second, it must be safe.

Fees are now more or less an expected part of booking airline travel, especially bag fees. But as the practice grew over the past eight or nine years, consumer advocates have fought for, if nothing else, maximum transparency around what those fees are so that consumers can make informed buying decisions. Until now.

After a long period of silence after saying last year that inflight animal rules would change, the Department of Transportation is now officially soliciting public comments on new rules about animals in an airline cabin.