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%.
I hate flying. It’s such an awful experience.
The worst part about airlines isn’t the actual flying. That’s safe and just as magical as the first time I flew in a plane when I was a kid. I still say “WOW!” out loud when we climb up through the cloud layer to that brilliant sunshine and perfect blue sky.
It’s all the parts except for moving through the air that suck. The seats, the other passengers, the airports, the fees, security probes, waiting in lines, uncomfortable and expensive terminals.
They took an amazing, magical experience that was a dream for thousands of years and enshittified it.
Adding on too, the pandemic-era increase in the airport enshittification experience.
Airports have restaurants and services, then the pandemic starts, and of course, a whole bunch of them close. Now a few years have passed, those services have more limited hours, and some never came back. It is much more difficult (and of course, expensive) to have access to services in airports than pre-2020. I’ve been through several hubs recently and it’s just flabbergasting how terrible it is to even try and find something basic like food.
Airline passengers are a captive audience trapped in an airport, especially during connecting flights. Airlines/airports should bear the cost of ensuring services are available any time flights are. They should bear the cost of keeping restaurants open later than 5PM. A quantity of airport services matching the passenger load should be available at flight times in respective terminals.
It’s easy to figure out, they know the manifests and schedules.
They should also have some sort of fallback process in place for when flights get trapped overnight in airports to take care of the passengers. It doesn’t need to be a free service, but at least doing something like: on call employees come in to run shops so passengers can buy goods.
It is dehumanizing. On the other hand, road trips are liberating.
I’d rather drive 18 hours than fly three hours. Mostly because the three hour flight is really more like six to nine hours because of getting to and from the airport, security, delays, etc.
I would love to see a reputable researcher try to calculate total lost revenues from travel avoidance.
Between the fake security theater treating everyone like absolute shit, the miniature airline seating designed to break knee caps, the over-crowded disease-spreading cabins, and the constant threat that the airline will kick you off the flight because they intentionally overbooked, airline travel is complete bullshit.
This is the result of airlines allowed to self regulated… and the TSA
Does anything substantial actually come from the complaints? Are we expected to see some sort of retribution against these airlines or reduced federal subsidies to them? I’m genuinely asking because there really isn’t any alternative for fast travel.
Here is a fun thing. No . If passangers truly wanted a better service they could fly in a buisness class but thats more expensive so they will tolerate shitter service for lower price beacuse what really matters to them is the destination.
Having a slightly roomier seat doesn’t solve all of the other problems with air travel. Namely the security, the crowds, the food, the other passengers, the rescheduling of flights.
Imagine simping for airlines…
Flying business/first is STILL shit now.
I typically fly first and my last trip American cancelled my scheduled comfortable connection and replaced it with one that was way too short. Predictably because of delays in my first leg my scheduled connecting flight was missed.
My wife and I were left with the options of not getting home that night or flying economy home. American compensated us with $15 vouchers.
It’s actually impressive that they’ve even made first class a shitty experience.
Found the airline executive!
I haven’t been in an airport since before lockdown. It’s been pretty great. It took a pandemic to make me realize that the act of traveling ruins the fun of visiting places.
Let’s go back to water travel
I, for one, would like to see more water-based everything. Especially motion pictures. For instance, a movie about that swimming guy, what was his name? Aquatic Man was it?
Some shark movie maybe? Cheeks?
I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been able to afford it for years
haven’t been on an airplane in over 25 years. i wouldn’t want to nowadays, even if i could afford it.
always has been
I’d like to see a breakdown on what the complaints are about. What percentage is about a flight being canceled or delayed, what percent is about being treated like crap by an airline employee, what percentage is a complaint about other customers, etc.
Alternate title; Judging from the level of air-line complaints, people are getting bitchier.
You’re providing an excellent example of your hypothesis.
More travel, more complaints. Not rocket science.
There should be more rocket travel.
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.
He did work for McKinsey consulting which in itself is always a red flag.
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Neolibs. Buttigieg isn’t a leftist. He’s center-right.
Yeah let’s compare it to a list of things that Republicans have touched that have objectively improved:
- ?
You’re right, that’s way better :)
