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(c) Elliott Publishing.

Toothless DOT
Cheap Charlie · April 9, 2001

The litany of airline failures seems to be making every form of media these days. The latest promises from the airlines seem to echo those of a year ago. Not much has changed, except for the increase of media focus.

Hopefully, outraged travelers will override airline soft money in Washington. Once upon a time it obviously did. Back in the days when the Department of Transportation (DOT) wrote the current denied boarding compensation rules, they clearly were thinking about customers first. Today, I'm afraid that it is companies first.

With denied boarding compensation, passengers are basically offered $200 if they arrive at their destination within two hours and $400 if they arrive more than two hours later than their scheduled arrival.

DOT should come up with some similar rules concerning on-time schedules. If your flight is more than one hour late and less than two hours late, the airlines should pay you compensation for your lost time etc. There should be another category for flights more than two hours late.

This may encourage airlines to make schedules realistic and let customers know what's happening. Airlines respond to the stick. I can already hear them howling, we'll go broke. Not if they tell the truth and stick to their schedules.

Lets hope that by some form of magic the DOT comes back to the side of the traveler. Somewhere in their bureaucratic soul, I know that the department wants to help passengers. Unfortunately, Congress has stripped them of any enforcement capabilities.

DOT has no teeth.

Even if DOT wants to help airline travelers, they don't have the inspectors. Congress is in another of their bellicose moods where they release a lot of hot air to fill newspapers and the airwaves with their indignation, while eliminating any enforcement of their rules.

DOT today only has 22 investigators working on thousands of consumer complaints.

We now have laws with no enforcement. With an airline industry that regularly thumbs its nose at any regulation, we need some sort of minimal enforcement.

I called DOT last week about looking into a clear violation of the denied boarding law. Their first response was, "We only have 22 investigators and there are thousands of complaints."

I responded, "There may be thousands of customer service complaints, but my call is about a clear black and white violation of one of only two laws concerning customer service. You don't need much of an investigation - this is either yes or no, kinda like are you driving 50 mph in a 30 mph zone."

Well, send it in, they said. "Well see what we can do."

They then added, "Copy your Congressman on the letter, it may get faster attention." I'm not holding my breath, but the letter is going out.

In the meantime, write your Senators and representative. Here are the two Web sites that will help you reach them in Washington:

To contact your representative: http://www.house.gov/writerep/

To contact your senator: http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm

Charlie Leocha is the Boston-based author of Travel Rights: Know the Rules of the Road and the Air Before You Go. Cheap Charlie appears every Monday on this site. E-mail him at leocha@aol.com or access his Web site.