On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced his plan to create a “rule” to ensure that U.S. airline flights run on time.
In a speech outlining his initiatives to require airlines to compensate and accommodate customers, Biden revealed that he will “propose a historic new rule” that will force airlines to compensate customers for cancellations that are deemed to have been avoidable:
“Later this year, my administration will propose a 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 rebo- — and rebooking foo- — fees, and cash, miles, and/or travel vouchers whenever they are the ones to blame for the cancellation or delay.
“And that’s all on top of refunding the cost of your ticket.”
Citing an unnamed study, Biden claimed that the practice of inflicting financial penalties on airlines that don’t meet their schedules has already been proven effective in other parts of the world:
“Airline passengers in Canada, for example, and 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.”
Biden then called on his transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, to move quickly implementing the new mandate for the airline industry:
“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.”
It’s become a cliché that, despite the atrocities committed by his regime during the 1920’s and ‘30s, Italy’s fascist dictator Benito Mussolini “made the trains run on time,” a claim that appears to have been more propaganda than fact.
However, Mussolini might well have made the trains run on time simply by adjusting the train schedules to allow far more than enough time needed to reach their destinations.
If U.S. airlines under the Biden Administration do the same, planes will arrive “on time” and airlines will avoid paying reparations – but, it’ll take even longer for passengers to get to their destinations.