3 On Your Side: Filing An Airline Complaint Isn't So Simple
By Jim Donovan
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Planning on taking a plane trip anytime soon? It probably doesn't come as a shock, but often the friendly skies aren't that friendly anymore.
Delays, cancellations, lost luggage, sometimes you just want someone to listen to your complaints. In today's 3 On Your Side consumer report we find that filing an airline complaint, isn't very easy.
Whether they're in the air or on the ground, traveling by plane can leave passengers at the end of their rope. Want to file a complaint? Good luck.
While airlines are required to put the Department of Transportation's complaint information online, just try to find it.
To get the information on the American Airlines website for instance, you have to look in the travel information section, click special assistance, and look for what's called the Air Carrier Access Act before you see it.
Delta's website also had it hidden in the Air Carrier Access Act section, where it also has information for travelers with disabilities.
It's a tricky search on Frontier's website too. The information is in its "boarding and disembarking" section. An airline spokesman admitted a customer would "have to do their research" to find it.
George Hobica of airfarewatchdog.com gave it a go. After trying to find the Department of Transportation complaint information on six airline web sites, he came up empty.
"If you put something on a web and its so deeply buried that nobody can find it, then really you're just playing a game," said Hobica.
"They probably don't want these complaints, they don't want to see these complaints and this is their way of doing it," said California Congresswoman, Janice Hahn.
Hahn says complaints to the Department of Transportation are important since the agency can levy fines and issue new regulations based on patterns of complaints.
She's sponsoring a bill to make the airlines prominently post the information. Until then, good luck hunting.
"We don't want airlines to get away with bad behavior," said Hahn.
798 million passengers traveled by air last year in the United States but only 20-thousand complaints were filed. Who knows if that's because travelers don't know where to complain.
One option is to file a complaint directly on the Department of Transportation's web site.
