Follow-Up Review: Performance of U.S. Airline in Implementing Selected Provisions of the Airline Customer Service Commitment

摘要

Overall, we found that the ATA airlines customer service plans are still in place to carry out the provisions of the Commitment and that the Commitment provisions are still incorporated in their contracts of carriage,7 as we recommended in our prior review. This is important because unlike DOT regulations, which are enforced by the Department and may result in administrative or civil penalties against an air carrier, contracts of carriage are enforceable by the customer in court actions against the air carriers. Thus, when an air carrier incorporates the Commitment into its contract of carriage, the Commitment becomes legally enforceable by the customer against the air carrier. We found that the airlines need to (1) resume efforts to self-audit their customer service plans; (2) emphasize to their customer service employees the importance of providing timely and adequate flight information; (3) focus on the training for personnel who assist passengers with disabilities; (4) provide straightforward, comprehensive reporting on frequent flyer award redemptions; and (5) improve the handling of bumped passengers.