Airlines push back on passenger rights

The past several years have seen a bevy of customer protections mandated across the US commercial aviation space. They’re barely sufficient, but they happened. Now airlines are pressing the new administration to roll them back.

In letters to the Department of Transportation both Airlines for America and IATA requested the Agency freeze all processing of pending regulations, and in some cases roll back already approved plans.

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The missives do not mince words. Indeed, the IATA message aggressively leans into calling out the Obama and Biden administrations and the rules changes effected under them:

The commercial airline industry continues to suffer from the aggressive efforts by both the Obama and Biden administrations to re-regulate carriers that operate to, from, or within the United States. Since 2009, the two administrations issued more than 11 significant passenger rights and accessibility rules and numerous policies designed to force airlines to operate in a fashion that bureaucrats deemed acceptable. They did so without any real understanding or appreciation of airline operations, without any real attempt to demonstrate that the benefits of regulation exceeded the cost to the industry, with an expansionist view of congressional authorizations and existing laws, with little regard to their limited jurisdiction over foreign airline operations, and with little recognition of their narrow authority over commercial aviation following the passage of the ADA. This comprehensive regulatory regime has imposed exorbitant costs on the industry, created confusion and higher costs for consumers, and resulted in a reduction in airline competition on passenger service.

The airline industry was fortunate that the first Trump Administration froze or terminated several Obama DOT pending passenger rights regulations. Unfortunately, the Biden Administration simply took up where the Obama Administration left off and reversed those holds or terminations. In addition, Secretary Pete Buttigieg spent four years browbeating the U.S. airlines to deliver his vision of how airlines should treat their customers through the threat of additional regulation and public shaming.

We urge the Trump Administration to take immediate action to forestall DOT’s march toward further re-regulation of the vital commercial aviation industry.

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Among the specific actions requested by IATA:

• Terminate the “Airline Passenger Rights” Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) – Killing the proposed plan to offer passengers compensation when US airlines delay flights, similar to EU261
• Terminate the “Enhancing Transparency of Airline Ancillary Service Fees” Rule – Eliminating the need to disclose all ancillary fees on the first search results page
• Terminate the “Competition in Air Transportation” Request for Information (RFI) – Claiming competition is obviously sufficient
• Modify the “Refunds and Other Consumer Protections I” Rule – Remove credits for public health outbreaks and refunds for flight number changes, first proposed in 2022 and codified in 2024
• Modify the “Family Seating in Air Transportation” Notice of Proposed Rulemaking – Removing the mandate of how it is implemented
• Review Disability Rights Regulations – Limiting liability for failing to deliver a wheelchair within 24 hours of the passenger to whom it belongs.

A4A is not quite as explicit in its note, instead pointing out that a recent executive memo should see all the recently proposed and finalized rules “frozen” so they can be evaluated by the incoming administration. The ultimate goal however, is killing them. The freeze is simply to buy time for those changes to be made.

On the plus side, it does not appear that either side is seeking to fully repeal the full fare advertising rule, at least not yet.

IATA supports raising the pilot retirement age, though in concert with ICAO which currently is also 65 years old. The organization also calls for increased investment in airport infrastructure and ATC, but without any cost to airlines. And it asks for the DOT to stop imposing its rules – including accessibility requirements – on foreign carriers, especially at foreign airports.