What’s disconcerting is that other members of Congress, airline regulars, haven’t viewed this issue similarly and given the regulators more carrots and sticks to work with or demanded more action from them. As was shown in the Boeing 737 Max fiasco, regulators can sometimes seem beholden to the regulated. Certainly, there was no appetite in the Trump administration for tighter airline (or any other) regulations. And the carriers have been able to keep the Federal Aviation Administration at a distance.
Airline deregulation began in 1978, and over the decades passengers have made a trade-off. They got lower fares and greater access to more airlines, including JetBlue and Southwest. Then came ultra-low-cost carriers such as Spirit, Allegiant and, most recently, Breeze, founded by Mr. Neeleman. Democratizing travel via competitive pricing has been great for nearly everyone.
The trade-off is that everything else about flying gradually deteriorated: comfort, seating, punctuality, baggage, amenities and customer service. Just when we think these trade-offs can’t get any grimmer, they do. Frontier, for instance, recently got rid of its telephone agents. Got a problem? Need to rebook because of weather? Chat with its friendly bot. Other technology, spurred by the pandemic, has allowed carriers to push more of the work on us passengers, from ticketing to checking bags.
We’ve got a perfect opportunity to make regulatory changes now that the carriers are landing massive profits. We need the carriers to thrive — but not at the cost of amplifying our misery as we move about the country, to borrow a phrase from Southwest. In a shift of tone, perhaps, President Biden has nominated Phil Washington, the chief executive of the Denver International Airport, as head of the F.A.A. Mr. Washington should bring more of the passenger’s perspective to the job. His predecessor was a former airline executive.
Mr. Buttigieg has launched an investigation and threatened to fine Southwest for not honoring its customer service plan — which says, for instance, that the company will notify passengers within 30 minutes of a flight being canceled. But airlines get to make their own customer service plans. How about letting passengers, backed by some regulatory muscle, help make new ones that are fairer to both sides of the transaction?
Bill Saporito
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