Markey, Blumenthal Call for Southwest Airways to Compensate Travellers for Avoidable Holiday getaway Cancellations

Airline has so far canceled an approximated 10,000 scheduled flights    

Washington (December 27, 2022) – Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), associates of the Senate Commerce Committee, produced the subsequent assertion today in the wake of Southwest Airlines’s cancellation of thousands of flights around the vacation weekend, because of mainly to internal failures at the organization.

“Southwest Airlines is failing consumers during the most essential vacation week of the calendar year. Instead of a holiday spent celebrating with loved ones and buddies, passengers are sleeping in airports or desperately trying to reach consumer service agents. For these tourists whose holidays have been ruined, there is no actual way for Southwest to make this correct. But the enterprise can commence by pretty compensating travellers whose flights had been canceled, which include not only rebooked tickets, ticket refunds, and lodge, food, and transportation reimbursement, but significant financial compensation for the disruption to their getaway designs. Southwest is setting up to problem a $428 million dividend future year – the corporation can afford to do appropriate by the customers it has harmed. Southwest really should target first on its customers stranded at airports and trapped on interminable maintain.

“Southwest can not keep away from compensating travellers by professing these flight cancellations were prompted by new winter storms. As Southwest executives have acknowledged, the mass cancellations yesterday were largely because of to the failure of its very own internal techniques. As these kinds of, all those cancellations must be classified as ‘controllable,’ and Southwest should compensate travellers appropriately.”

In November, Senators Markey and Blumenthal, alongside with Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Clean.), filed a comment on the Section of Transportation’s (DOT) proposed rule on airline ticket refunds, urging DOT to strengthen and expeditiously finalize the proposed rule to be certain that consumers are fairly compensated when an airline cancels or significantly delays their flight. In May well, the a few lawmakers wrote a letter to DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg urging the Division to use its regulatory electricity to choose steps to safeguard individuals by clarifying and codifying insurance policies requiring carriers and ticket agents to provide prompt refunds just after a flight is cancelled or appreciably delayed, as nicely as clarifying the legal rights for people who are unable to journey because of to government constraints or the declaration of a community overall health unexpected emergency.

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