2nd January, 2023
What stops airlines from empathising with a traveller when there is a flight delay or a cancellation?
There are airlines that continue to fall short when it comes to serving passengers even in situations that are deemed to be “controllable” delays and cancellations.
If no clarity over the airline issue when a passenger calls, what about the non-airline issue? Why not convey the same to the passenger?
Organizations like The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) are looking into it, for instance, an attempt to highlight top US carriers’ commitment in such situations.
A first-hand experience of a recent Air India cancelled flight from US to India (SFO-Delhi, cancelled on 13th December 2022) clearly depicted the miserable state of affairs. Selling tickets for a route/ round-trip after announcing the cancellation of the same via a press release a couple of days before is surely going to leave travellers in lurch. No email/ message to inform about the same, one gets to know about it at the time of web check-in. From not acknowledging the reason on a call to not offering hotel accommodation just because a hassled traveller chose to rebook (after a 60-minute long international roaming call, with no option to rebook with a partner airline and being offered abysmal connections in lieu of a direct 16-hour long flight) rather than reporting for the same flight at the airport shows how airlines do not think like a traveller!
On another note, how can hotels help such stranded travellers who are left with no options but to book on their own?
Some stats from a DOT report in December:
- In September 2022, the 10 marketing network carriers in the U. S. reported over 580,000 scheduled domestic flights, 1.5% of which were cancelled.
- For the first nine months of 2022, the Department received 48,737 complaints, up 27.1% filed during the same period in 2021.
As it turns out, the situation has improved a bit in the U. S., looking at what services are being offered when a flight is cancelled or delayed because of an airline issue. What about the rest?
Time the industry acts in a responsible way, at least sticking to the prescribed consumer protection in air travel. The DOT is looking at aspects like carriers informing passengers about a refund where applicable, when to offer non-expiring vouchers or travel credits etc.
Can we expect a better experience in 2023?
By Ritesh Gupta,
Ai Team
