Good news for those who fly our friendly skies. The Obama administration is about to make your pockets get fatter when airlines overbook flights, which they have been doing with notorious regularity. Obama plans to begin taxing airlines with additional fees for unnecessarily bumping passengers off flights.
The U.S. Department of Transportation is set to increase the amount airlines have to pay if they bump passengers involuntarily to a later flight. Antagonism between passengers and airlines has grown as the bump rates soar, ABC News reports. Last year, 762,422 passengers got pushed back, up 10 percent from the previous year. This year is on pace to rise another 17 percent.
“The airlines are cutting back because of the economy and the planes are fuller,” explains one aviation blogger.
Airlines are continuing to oversell flights, something only JetBlue has a policy of not doing, reports say. Currently, passengers must be paid $400 to $800 if bumped involuntarily from a flight; those limits would increase to $650 to $1300. The fees are rarely assessed; airlines can avoid them by offering passengers incentives, like credit toward later flights, to voluntarily switch. –terry shropshire
