By: Todd Knode

Buying a plane ticket is not like purchasing a coat off of the rack at your local department store.  The coat is there for you to immediately put on.  An airplane flight is a future occurrence, which may or may not happen.  Because of that uncertainty, whether you realize it or not, airlines do not guarantee their schedules.  Because flights are not guaranteed passengers whose flights are canceled are not automatically offered a refund.

An airline is only required to immediately refund a passenger who is bumped from a flight because of overbooking or who requests a refund if the only available option is a flight on another day, or a flight that has an unanticipated layover.  Other than those events the only policy an airline must follow is its own refund policy if you are offered a spot on a flight that leaves that day, whether you want to take it or not.
 
Over this past week passengers on American Airlines have suffered through numerous canceled flights.  American has responded by offering refunds through its website and reimbursing passengers who had to book overnight hotel rooms.  The lost revenue and payments to stranded travelers is costing the airline “tens of millions of dollars” according to its CEO, Gerard Arpey.

If a passenger has to be somewhere, does reimbursing them for the cost of the ticket make up for canceling a flight because of lax or an intentional oversight?  The American planes were canceled because wiring on the plane’s wings failed an FAA spot check.  American, and every other airline, knew about the rule yet allowed its planes, either intentionally or negligently, to fall below the standard.  This is not about a crack that suddenly develops or a mechanical problem that no one knew of before.

Like the hundreds of passengers left stranded on airplanes stuck on runways because of bad weather, American’s passengers are at the mercy of the airline.  Airlines are heavily regulated, but mainly in the area of safety and the routes the planes fly.  Passengers have very little rights in the terminal and once on board all decisions about what to do reside with the Captain.

The growing frustration of airline customers probably has more to do with a lack of information and empowerment than actual frustration with why their plane is on the ground rather than in the sky.  The laws should be changed to force the airlines to disclose more information to their customers, allow customers more freedom to make changes to their flights and setup a system to punish airlines that make foolish decisions that cause a plane to turn into a prison on an icy runway.