If you have flown recently you know it can be tricky out there. Between wicked weather and tech meltdowns, it feels like delays and cancellations are just the price of flying.
Knowing what your rights are before you go can take some of the stress out of the situation. The feds don’t have too many rules when it comes to passenger rights, except if you are stuck on the tarmac. In most cases, you can’t be held on the tarmac for more than three hours - and after two hours they have to give you food and water.
When it comes to delays and cancellations, each airline has its own policies. Most won’t offer anything if the delay was outside their control, like because of severe weather. But when it comes to delays and cancellations they can control, most will provide hotel vouchers if the delay extends overnight and meal vouchers if it lasts longer than three hours. The Department of Transportation has an airline customer service dashboard that will spell it all out for you.
There are rules when it comes to bumping passengers, which is when an airline oversells a flight and has to revoke some people’s tickets. They will often offer passengers compensation to volunteer. That’s because when they have to kick people off involuntarily there is a set price they have to pay. For example, if you get bumped and the substitute transportation gets you to your destination more than two hours after the original you are owed four hundred percent of your one-way fare.
And that is why it pays to know the rules.