Online dashboard set to help flyers with delays, cancellations

After a summer of widespread airline disruptions, the U.S. Department of Transportation has rolled out an online travel tool to help passengers figure out what services they’re owed when flights go awry.

The new customer service dashboard compares what each of the major carriers offers for delays of more than three hours and for canceled flights that are due to airline issues. The amenities and services outlined, such as meals and hotels, are for “controllable” factors faced by carriers, including maintenance, crew problems, aircraft cleaning, baggage loading or fueling issues.  Delays or cancellations due to weather, security issues or issues with the national aviation system are not covered.

At Long Island MacArthur Airport, roughly 65% of flights arrived on time for the first six months of the year, according to the DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics. About 12% of delays were due to factors within the airlines' control and roughly 4% of flights were diverted or canceled. The cause of the cancellations was not clarified.

During the same period in 2019, nearly 75% of flights were on time at MacArthur. About 8% of delays then were due to airline issues. Nearly 3% of flights were canceled and diverted.

For the first six months of the year, air carriers were responsible for nearly 8% of delayed flights at Kennedy Airport and 6% of delayed flights at LaGuardia Airport, according to DOT statistics. At Kennedy, about 5% of flights were canceled during that time and nearly 7% were canceled during that time at LaGuardia. 

Flights experts said cancellation rates of over 1% can have a rippling effect on the system. This summer has seen an average of one in five flights delayed or canceled, experts said.

“Passengers deserve transparency and clarity on what to expect from an airline when there is a cancellation or disruption,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a news release. “This dashboard collects that information in one place so travelers can easily understand their rights, compare airline practices, and make informed decisions.”

Some travelers flying into MacArthur Airport had mixed reactions about the dashboard. Kerry Jones, 70, from Chicago, said that while the dashboard was a step in the right direction, she felt it was a long time coming.

Patrick Pickarts, 36, from Philadelphia, said: “I’m curious to see how it works. We’ll see.”

Yvonne Joseph, 43, flew into Islip from Charlotte, North Carolina, and welcomed the new tool to hold the carriers to task.

“I think it’s really good... just holding the airlines accountable," Joseph said. 

Buttigieg sent major carriers a letter two weeks ago calling the level of flight disruptions this summer “unacceptable,” while highlighting new DOT proposals to protect consumers. This led to more airlines committing to help passengers, DOT officials said.

For instance, before Buttigieg’s letter, no airlines guaranteed meal vouchers or hotels to passengers but now, 9 out of 10 airlines will provide full meals and 8 out of 10 will provide hotel accommodations when cancellations or delays are due to airline issues, DOT officials said. Officials hope the dashboard adds more competition and transparency among carriers. 

Many U.S. airlines already list their customer service plans on their individual websites, according to Hannah Walden, a spokesperson for Airlines for Americas, an industry trade group which represents major carriers. But the dashboard offers a one-stop shop for flyers.

So far this year, airlines have canceled about 146,000 flights, or 2.6% of all flights, and nearly 1.3 million flights have been delayed, according to tracking service FlightAware. The rate of cancellations is up about one-third from the same period in 2019, before the pandemic, and the rate of delays is up nearly one-fourth. 

In June 2022, reporting marketing carriers canceled 3.1% of their scheduled domestic flights, higher than the rate of 2.1% in pre-pandemic June 2019, according to a DOT release.

Federal officials have blamed many of the disruptions on understaffing at airlines, which encouraged employees to quit after the pandemic started. The airlines have countered by blaming staffing problems at the Federal Aviation Administration, which employs air traffic controllers. 

With AP