It was almost the night before Christmas, and the house was winning.
16.12.2023 - 15:16 / travelandleisure.com / Pete Buttigieg
‘Tis the season for traveling, and US government officials are urging travelers to make sure they know their rights ahead of time.
“For those who are planning to fly. I want to emphasize that in the last two years, we've dramatically expanded passenger protections,” U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg recently shared in a one-on-one interview with Travel + Leisure. "If you do have a problem after the fact you can use that website to reach out to us with a complaint. We hope it doesn't come to that but we have helped passengers get $2 billion in refunds and counting. So if you do need our help, we are here to have your back."
As over 131 million Americans are expected to fly this holiday season — with the busiest travel days being between Dec. 21 and Dec. 23. — the Department of Transportation is asking Americans to be prepared for the surge and take extra precautions such as planning extra time and being extra vigilant on roadways which are expected to be packed.
“Remember that the most important thing isn't to get there first, it's to get there safely,” Sec. Buttigieg said, who also spoke with T+L regarding the announcement of the high-speed train project that will connect Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
Sec. Buttigieg encourages travelers who find themselves in need of assistance to visit FlightRights.gov, which is complete with a dashboard guide displaying each airline's policies including delay and cancellation policies, as well as family seating.
“We're going to do everything that's under our control to keep it a safe and efficient travel season and we're going to press airlines to do the same," he added.
The secretary's sentiment, and the creation of the dashboard, come almost a year after Southwest's holiday «meltdown» in which thousands of flights were canceled and passengers were left stranded at airports.
For it's part, the airline's CEO said this week that the carrier was prepared for what is expected to be a record-breaking year for holiday travel and «that week does not define Southwest Airlines.»
It was almost the night before Christmas, and the house was winning.
Fewer U.S. commercial flights were canceled in 2023 than at any point in at least the past decade, the Department of Transportation said this week.
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Southwest Airlines canceled 16,900 flights and stranded more than 2 million fliers between December 2022 and early January 2023, as operations took a nosedive amid severe winter storms that disrupted holiday air travel across much of the United States last year. But while other major U.S. carriers recovered from the weather-fueled delays and cancellations, Southwest struggled to normalize operations and continued to cancel flights in the days following Christmas 2022. Now, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is making it very clear that that level of failed service comes with serious consequences.
With more than 115 million Americans expected to travel over the next few weeks, according to AAA, this holiday season is gearing up to be one of the busiest ones ever.