In the wake of the government shutdown, which resulted in nearly one in every 10 flights being delayed, you would imagine that the Trump administration would do something to restore its reputation and consumer confidence in air travel before the holidays. But, here’s the wild pitch: What if they did the exact opposite? In a new filing from the Transportation Department, the Trump administration said it would eliminate a Biden-era rule requiring airlines to provide meals, hotels and cash to passengers affected by flight delays.
According to the document, the Trump administration has decided that it is not authorized to require airlines to provide compensation to passengers under existing rules, which seems to be one of the few cases that it is concerned about what the law says. It also argued that the changes “will not lead to meaningful improvements in airline flight performance.” Even if this were true, and performance did not improve, there would be a rubric for compensating people when their carrier of choice fails to get them to their destination on time. There is now no incentive to improve and no mandate to compensate affected passengers.
The Trump administration cited industry groups representing airlines, which claimed the required payments could cost carriers up to $5 billion a year. The groups also suggested that the costs “could potentially be passed on to American consumers in the form of higher ticket prices.”
Instead of the required compensation established under Biden, the Trump administration is going with the old “free market” approach. “The Department concludes that it is consistent with this statute to allow airlines to compete on the services and compensation they provide to passengers, rather than imposing new minimum requirements for these services and compensation through regulation, which would impose significant costs on airlines and potential consumers,” she wrote.
The Biden-era rule, first proposed in 2023, would require airlines to pay passengers between $200 and $775 depending on the length of their delays, as well as offer free meals, accommodations and re-booking if flights are disrupted due to circumstances within the airlines’ control. While most carriers offer things like free rebooking and vouchers for meals or hotels during extended delays, the rules depend on who you’re flying with. Before Biden’s proposal, no carriers had offered cash compensation for the inconvenience caused by delays.
If the rule went forward, it would standardize what people could expect from an airline during a delay. Instead, we are back to a free-for-all situation. Consumers will certainly be consoled during their next delay that their airline won the battle in the marketplace of ideas by denying them compensation.