By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) visited the Rainier Beach Community Center alongside Coach Mike Bethea of the Rainier Beach High School Varsity Boys Basketball team to celebrate new consumer protections for fliers enacted in the Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act of 2024. The event highlighted the importance of these protections, especially after the challenges Coach Bethea and his team faced during the 2022 holiday and basketball season when they were stranded in Las Vegas due to Southwest Airlines’ operational meltdown caused by Winter Storm Elliott.
Coach Bethea recounted the difficulties they experienced.
“It was a daily trek for my wife and I back to the airport in the morning to find out if we could even just get on a standby list to fly home. In the meantime, we had a party of 32 including the team. And you have kids who were wanting to get home for Christmas. Parents who were wanting their kids home for Christmas. And so what we basically did was my wife and I, we made sure we focused on making the kids as comfortable as possible. The airline’s approach was basically day after day: ‘You’re on your own. Do what you have to do,'” Bethea described. “I remember the first day when I called out to Southwest Airlines. They put me on hold. And I actually went to sleep. And I woke up and I was still on hold.”
In response to this ordeal, Sen. Cantwell personally assisted Coach Bethea and his wife in securing a full refund and other reimbursements from Southwest Airlines. This incident motivated her to pursue legislation to ease travelers’ anxiety and protect airline consumers. Sen. Cantwell was inspired to push for stronger consumer protections after hearing stories from travelers like Coach Bethea and his team. In February 2023, after the Betheas spent more than a month negotiating with Southwest Airlines, Sen. Cantwell summoned COO Andrew Watterson to testify during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. At the hearing, she handed Watterson a handwritten note with the Betheas’ phone number and instructed him to call them.
“I asked the Betheas, what could we do to improve this situation? They really wanted to make sure they could get someone on the phone. And that is really what we made happen literally, in their case — with the airlines, asking them to call them immediately and rectify this mistake. But I also knew that Congress needed stronger protections for consumers,” Sen. Cantwell said. “So, for the first time, Congress is setting into law passenger refunds for even non-refundable tickets. You’re now entitled to a hassle-free refund after a three-hour delay of a domestic flight, and a six-hour delay for international flights. Putting this into law creates a strong legal foundation no matter who is in the White House in the future. That means it can’t be taken away: It’s in the law. This is a big win for consumers.”
As chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Sen. Cantwell fought tirelessly for strong consumer protections for travelers throughout the bill negotiation process. The final law includes several key provisions:
• Set Clear Right to Refunds: A hassle-free refund will be required if a domestic flight is delayed more than three hours and if an international flight is delayed more than six hours.
• Require Fee-Free Family Seating: The law prohibits airlines from charging fees for families to sit together.
• Improve Communication with Consumers When Things Go Wrong: The law requires airlines to provide free, 24/7 access to customer service agents by phone, live chat, or text message to ensure consumers have access to help they need in the event of travel disruptions.
• Triple Civil Penalties for Violations: To hold airlines accountable, the law triples the DOT’s statutory civil penalty for consumer violations from $25,000 per violation to $75,000.
President Joe Biden signed the bill on May 16, cementing these consumer protections into law. This landmark legislation aims to promote fairness and provide travelers with a more pleasant and secure flying experience.
In a letter to Sen. Cantwell, National Consumers League president and CEO Sally Greenberg emphasized the importance of these protections, stating that promoting fairness and providing consumers with a “more pleasant experience” are crucial steps toward a better airline industry. The collaborative efforts of lawmakers and consumer advocates have resulted in significant strides toward protecting the rights and well-being of airline passengers.
“These important new regulations will promote fairness and competition in an industry where passenger rights are too often an afterthought,” Sally Greenberg, president and CEO of the National Consumers League, wrote in a letter to Sen. Cantwell. “Legislating in a divided Congress is never easy, but your leadership on the FAA reauthorization bill helped deliver real, bipartisan achievements. The FAA reauthorization bill will help make flying for Washingtonians and all Americans a fairer and more pleasant experience.”
Providing “meaningful consumer protection” and making “travel pleasant again”, Consumer Watchdog Director, Teresa Murray supports the protections included in the FAA Reauthorization Bill.
“We’re grateful for Sen. Cantwell’s leadership to ensure that meaningful consumer protections were included in the FAA Reauthorization Bill. Complaints against U.S. airlines about refunds, cancellations and other problems hit an all-time high in 2022, as we’ve detailed in our analysis of DOT data. Something had to give. The new law guarantees so many protections that are common sense but took Congress to fix when the airlines wouldn’t, dealing with no-hassle refunds, unnecessary fees for children, 24/7 customer service, vouchers that last five years and more. There is still work to be done, but this law goes a long way toward making air travel pleasant again,” said Teresa Murray, Consumer Watchdog Director, U.S. PIRG.
