Complaints about air travel are soaring. The U.S. Transportation Department said Wednesday that consumer complaints about airlines nearly doubled in the first three months of this year, compared with the same period last year, and kept rising in April and May.

Air travel is getting worse, judging from the number of consumer complaints.

Consumer complaints about airlines nearly doubled in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year and kept soaring in April and May, the U.S. Transportation Department said Wednesday.

Those are the latest figures from the government. The Transportation Department said information about complaints has been delayed because there are so many of them to process.

The department said it received 24,965 complaints about airline service in the first three months of the year, up 88% from the first quarter of 2022. Consumers filed another 6,712 complaints in April, up 32% from a year earlier, and 6,465 in May, an increase of 49%.

  • easydnesto@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    27·
    1 year ago

    Does anything substantial actually come from the complaints? Are we expected to see some sort of retribution against these airlines or reduced federal subsidies to them? I’m genuinely asking because there really isn’t any alternative for fast travel.

    • szczuroarturo@programming.dev
      631·
      1 year ago

      Here is a fun thing. No . If passangers truly wanted a better service they could fly in a buisness class but thats more expensive so they will tolerate shitter service for lower price beacuse what really matters to them is the destination.

      • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
        21·
        1 year ago

        Having a slightly roomier seat doesn’t solve all of the other problems with air travel. Namely the security, the crowds, the food, the other passengers, the rescheduling of flights.

      • uncheck1480@lemmy.world
        151·
        1 year ago

        Flying business/first is STILL shit now.

        I typically fly first and my last trip American cancelled my scheduled comfortable connection and replaced it with one that was way too short. Predictably because of delays in my first leg my scheduled connecting flight was missed.

        My wife and I were left with the options of not getting home that night or flying economy home. American compensated us with $15 vouchers.

        It’s actually impressive that they’ve even made first class a shitty experience.

      • Furedadmins@lemmy.world
        2·
        1 year ago

        The cost difference between business and economy for domestic flights is insane recently. Last week I got an upsell ad in checkin to upgrade the first segment of my flight for 700 dollars. This was a 40 minute flight on a regional jet. The difference in seats on that flight is minimal - 2 extra inches of legroom, and such a short flight no service. But the reason that the difference is so high is because of supply and demand - people do want things to not be shitty but there aren’t enough not shit to go around.