Airline passengers involuntarily bumped from oversold flights will receive as much as $800 in compensation - double the current limit - under new federal rules announced yesterday in a move the government hopes will increase protections for passengers bedeviled by increasing congestion and delays.
Such passengers rescheduled to arrive more than two hours late at their domestic destination will be entitled to twice the cost of their ticket, up to $800. Those delayed between one and two hours will receive the value of their ticket, up to $400. Any compensation is in addition to the value of the ticket, which the passenger can use for alternate transportation or have refunded if not used.
In addition, the new rule extends required compensation to smaller regional jets - those with 30 seats and up - a move the U.S. Transportation Department said was appropriate as big airlines increasingly use regional carriers to ferry passengers to connecting flights. Previously the rule applied only to passengers on planes with 60 or more seats.
The increase, scheduled to take effect next month, is the first in 30 years and comes as denied boardings have increased annually since 2004, reaching their highest rate in 10 years in 2007.
"We're trying to get it out in time before summer travel begins," said D.J. Gribbin, general counsel for the Transportation Department, who helped draft the rules change. "We need to make sure that passengers are compensated for the time they've wasted. It's overdue to be increased."
Passenger rights groups heralded the change, saying it should have come years ago. With airlines tightening capacity, more and more complaints come from travelers who are involuntarily bumped, said Kate Hanni, founder of the Coalition for an Aviation Passenger Bill of Rights.
But airline trade groups had resisted the increase, which comes at a time when the beleaguered industry is grappling with record fuel prices and resulting bankruptcies and mergers. Overbooking flights is a common practice for airlines, which want to be able to fill the seats of no-show customers.
"Without overbooking, no-shows would cause almost all fully booked flights to leave with empty seats," Bill Owen, the lead schedule planner for Southwest Airlines, wrote in an October post on the company's blog. "The potential for revenue lost due to no-shows could easily undermine Southwest's Low-Fare Leadership."
