Air Travel Taking Another Turn For the Worst

Airlines’ capacity to get passengers where they need to go appears to be deteriorating.

A malfunction on American Airlines over the weekend forced pilots to entirely cancel thousands of flights. Naturally, the big airline issued a statement claiming that the problem had been resolved and that business as usual will continue as usual.

Due to overbooked flights, Delta Airlines has begun paying passengers $10,000 to cancel their vacations. Online commentary on this received a range of reactions, though.

Some Americans questioned Delta’s decision to not use this funding to increase its employees in order to keep up with the demand for travel.

However, as a result of fresh cancellations, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was compelled to issue a statement.

For both airlines and passengers, the Fourth of July weekend has been problematic. As the number of flight cancellations increased, Buttigieg tweeted on Saturday that passengers who had their flights canceled should receive a fast reimbursement.

A link to the Consumer Protection website of the Transportation Department was included with this notification.

Given all the difficulties the nation’s main airlines are experiencing, Buttigieg asserts to be in constant communication with them. By the time Saturday morning was over, 2,000 planes had been delayed, while 500 had been completely canceled.

The Transportation Department’s policy is to reimburse passengers when airlines misplace their belongings, postpone or cancel flights, or even alter the quality of service that passengers are permitted to fly in.

Sen. Bernie Sanders put out a plan in June that he thinks would rein in the airlines.

The lawmaker from Vermont wants the Transportation Department to start fining airlines up to $50,000 per person when flights are canceled or delayed.