What does United Airlines’ unaccompanied minor fee cover? Katrina Cichosz wants to know, and after reviewing her case, I’m kind of curious, too.
Let’s go right to the textbook definition, which is on United’s website. When her 13-year-old daughter, Gabrielle, flew home for Thanksgiving on Nov. 21, she had the option of paying the $99 fee to cover “the extra handling required” for managing a child’s travel, but technically, she didn’t have to.
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There isn’t much Val Maswadi and Southwest Airlines can agree on.
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Always read to the end. The very end.
That’s my takeaway from today’s failed case, which involves a woman who was denied boarding on a United Airlines flight because she hadn’t paid a mysterious fee.
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J. Gillula had a Southwest Airlines ticket from Oakland, Calif., to Baltimore last year. But he didn’t have his ID.
That shouldn’t have been a problem, at least according to the TSA. It allows passengers who don’t have identification to undergo a secondary screening.
But it was a problem.
After a long wait, and an interrogation by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, a Southwest airlines employee approached me and told me that I would not be able to fly that day.
When I asked who it was — the TSA or Southwest — that was denying me the right to travel, she clearly indicated that Southwest was denying me boarding, in the presence of several TSA employees who made no attempt to correct her.
I was then escorted back to the ticket counter, where the Southwest employee processed a refund for my round trip ticket; she did not, however, make any attempt to re-book me or provide me with alternate transportation.
The Transportation Department’s latest high-profile fine goes against Comair for violating denied-boarding rules. It’s a big ticket: $275,000, which, while significantly less than the record fine against Spirit Airlines late last year, could be the largest enforcement action for bad bumping practices.
According to the government, an investigation of Comair revealed numerous cases in which the airline failed to solicit volunteers to leave overbooked flights and provide passengers with the appropriate denied boarding compensation.
The DOT’s Aviation Enforcement Office also found that Comair had filed inaccurate reports with DOT on the number of passengers involuntarily denied boarding.
Bad Comair!
Can you force an airline to follow its own rules? Phil and Margaret Warker wanted to know after a disastrous return flight from Nassau to Washington via Miami. US Airways blamed the weather and offered them a $100 flight voucher for the trouble.
But the Warkers saw things differently. They believe they were involuntarily bumped from their Miami flight, and claim the gate agents in Nassau promised them more compensation. Who’s right?
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In a surprise move, the Department of Transportation has fined two airlines for failing to disclose codesharing flights and disregarding their denied-boarding rules. United Airlines faces $80,000 in penalties for neglecting to inform travelers that certain flights were operated by another airline. And Delta Air Lines is being fined $375,000 for bumping passengers from its flights without compensation.
Here’s the consent order for Delta (PDF) and United (PDF).
The backstory is interesting.
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