Complaints about air travel are soaring. The U.S. Transportation Department said Wednesday that consumer complaints about airlines nearly doubled in the first three months of this year, compared with the same period last year, and kept rising in April and May.

Air travel is getting worse, judging from the number of consumer complaints.

Consumer complaints about airlines nearly doubled in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year and kept soaring in April and May, the U.S. Transportation Department said Wednesday.

Those are the latest figures from the government. The Transportation Department said information about complaints has been delayed because there are so many of them to process.

The department said it received 24,965 complaints about airline service in the first three months of the year, up 88% from the first quarter of 2022. Consumers filed another 6,712 complaints in April, up 32% from a year earlier, and 6,465 in May, an increase of 49%.

  • ChrisLicht@lemm.eeEnglish
    323·
    11 months ago

    Pete Buttigieg is part of the problem. He had his pick of posts, but he picked Secretary of Transportation, specifically so he could spread infrastructure money and attend ribbon-cuttings for four years, and avoid any serious matters that might blow back on him. Worse, he refuses to actually run the department like a serious leader, because he wants to keep big-business happy, so Wall Street donors fund his next presidential campaign.

    A proper Secretary of Transportation would be all over the airlines and rail companies in this moment.

    EDIT: I get the vibe that this is a hard truth, but you might spend a few minutes actually reading up on his tenure, the rail debacles, including the crushed strike, and the repeated lack of oversight on the airlines since 2021 as they have repeatedly gouged customers and cancelled thousands of flights. Buttigieg is studiously avoiding mixing it up on behalf of traveling Americans.