The US Department of Transportation (DOT) has come up with a customer care dashboard on Thursday to assist tourists before the Labour Day weekend.
The new dashboard has been introduced amid news of widespread aircraft delays and cancellations. US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s efforts have resulted in the creation of the new dashboard.
With the help of the new dashboard, travelers can select the airlines that will provide them with the best cancellation insurance. Travelers can use the dashboard to learn what assurances, refunds, or reimbursements major domestic airlines provide during flight delays and cancellations.
It analyses the rules of all major domestic airlines concerning whether one provides meals when the delay crosses three hours and which one provides free flight rebooking on the same or different carriers.
The dashboard focuses on “controllable” cancellations or delays, such as those brought on by technical problems, staffing shortages or delays in fuelling, cleaning or baggage handling, among other things.
The dashboard is the result of a relentless campaign by Pete Buttigieg, the US Transportation Secretary. After a summer ravaged by flight delays and cancellations, Buttigieg openly challenged all major airlines to work on their service and transparency.
In response to a question regarding the dashboard, Buttigieg answered that passengers deserve openness and clarification on what to anticipate from an airline whenever there is a cancellation or interruption.
He continues by saying that the dashboard will simplify travelers to understand their rights, evaluate airline policies and come to wise judgments.
The US Department of Transportation expects the dashboard to promote airline competition, which might lead to them providing more transparency and better customer protection.
According to estimates, it canceled 2.6% or around 146,000 flights and delayed about 1.3 million people in 2022. In comparison to the same timeframe in 2019, before the pandemic, the cancellation rates are almost one-third, and the delay rates are almost one-fourth.
While US government officials attribute many of these delays to understaffing that the airlines had induced its staff to resign at the beginning of the pandemic, on the other side, the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees air traffic controllers, has been accused by airlines of the staffing issues.
