Airport Avenger: Tips and Top Secrets for Airlines, Airfares, Fees, Security and Cancelations
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Is Anyone Listening?
Complaints That Count
The Department of Transportation got over 10,000 complaints from passengers about the airlines last year. Most were about flight delays, canceled flights and missed connections. That's a very low number, considering there were over 750 million airline passengers in the U.S.
Does that mean the airlines are doing a great job?
Hardly. The DOT collects passenger complaints about airlines and every month publishes a rundown of which airlines got the most complaints about baggage handling, customer service and a number of other things that can and do go wrong on the ground and in the air.
The report also includes on-time performance for airlines and airports. Read it here. The most recent report has data from two months before the current month.
But if DOT doesn't hear about it, the official number of complaints stays remarkably low, the airlines don't look so bad and lawmakers have little reason to jump up and down about making air travel more suitable for humans.
Airlines are well aware of this and want you to come to them first with a complaint. They hope they can make it up to you before you go to the DOT. It's worth a try anyway.
More tips and top secrets about complaints that count:
Speak Up!
Take It Up a Notch
Security Complaints