Three US airlines have committed to putting an end to family fees following pressure from the Transportation Department.
According to the Transportation Department, the three airlines that have agreed so far to guarantee that parents can sit next to their young children without having to pay extra fees are American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and Frontier Airlines, VisaGuide.World reports.
The decision of the three above-mentioned airlines was taken after the US Department of Transportation and the Biden Administration pressed airlines to improve their customer service.
While the announcement of the three airlines to provide family seating without added costs represents significant progress, the Transport Administration stressed that they would not stop here, suggesting that they plan on pressuring other airlines to take the same decision too.
It has been revealed that the authorities have already begun working on a rulemaking to ban airlines from charging fees to families wishing to sit together.
Commenting on the matter, the US Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said that all parents should be able to sit together with their children without the airlines charging them to pay junk fees. Moreover, Secretary Buttigieg said that all airlines should drop such a fee as soon as possible.
“We have been pressing airlines to guarantee family seating without tacking on extra charges, and now we’re seeing some airlines start to make this common-sense change. All airlines should do this promptly, even as we move forward to develop a rule establishing this as a requirement across the board,” the statement Secretary Buttigieg reads.
The Transportation Department has been pressing airlines in the country to do more for passengers since last summer.
Back in 2022, Secretary Buttigieg informed the ten largest US airlines that the authorities would publish a dashboard on services provided, such as meals, hotels, or rebooking in the event of a controllable cancelation or delay.
Before the Department made such a request, none of the largest airlines guaranteed any of the above-mentioned services, whereas currently, ten airlines guarantee rebooking and meals and nine guarantee in case of cancellations or delays.
In addition to the above-mentioned, the Department is working to make other changes too. The Department has been issuing a large number of fines to airlines for failing to provide timely refunds.
Moreover, it has also helped get passengers more than $1 billion back in refunds and has proposed a rule on Airline Ticket Refunds. Such a rule would require airlines to inform passengers of their right to receive a refund when a flight is significantly changed or canceled, among others.
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