Biden Makes The Middle Class A Priority In New Airline Rules

President Biden announced a new rule that will require airlines to compensate passengers for delayed or canceled flights.

Video of President Biden:

President Biden said:

 Later this year my administration will propose historic new rule that will make it mandatory, not voluntary, but mandatory for all U.S. airlines to compensate you with meals, hotels, taxis, ride shares or — and rebooking fees and cash miles and or travel vouchers whenever they are the ones to blame for the cancellation or the delay. And that’s all on top of refunding the cost of your ticket. Airline passengers in Canada, for example, in the European Union and other places already get these compensations and, guess what, it works. One study found that the European Union required airlines to compensate passengers for flight delays the number of flight delays went down. 

I appreciate Secretary Buttigieg’s leadership on this issue, and I hope and expect the Department of Transportation to move as quickly as it can to put this new rule in place. It matters. I know these things may not matter to the very wealthy, but they matter most to middle-class families and people struggling with the cost in the first place of getting on that airline. 

I discussed how this new rule represented good government in PoliticusUSA’s Daily Newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

Biden is putting people first with these new rules. The airline industry won’t be happy with having to compensate passengers for missed or delayed flights, but the President was right. Once the airlines could face having to pay passengers for their inability to deliver what customers have paid for, they will have incentive to improve their performance.

The new rule is an example of the Biden administration putting people first, and it is why he was elected after four years of the American people being ignored, and it painted the choice that voters have next year in the starkest possible light.