Two Democratic senators want airlines to eliminate any expiration dates associated with travel credits that were issued to customers for pandemic-related reasons.
Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, both members of the chamber’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, told airliners on Monday in a series of letters that they should offer cash refunds for pandemic-related cancellations and urged the companies to make all pandemic-related flight credits valid indefinitely “at a minimum.”
“We must first reiterate our belief that your airline should offer a cash refund for all tickets on flights canceled during the coronavirus pandemic, whether canceled by the airline or traveler. Americans need cash in their pockets to pay for food, housing, and prescriptions during this emergency,” the senators wrote.
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“It is unconscionable that airlines are largely refusing to return customers’ money even as the industry sits on more than $10 billion in unused travel credits,” they continued, citing a Wall Street Journal story from March 17 which reported that 28% of unused ticket credits in travel management firm TripActions’s system either expired or were to expire by the end of March.
The senators posed a number of questions to airlines, inquiring about how they are managing frequent flier programs and how much in credits they have issued during the coronavirus pandemic.
“What types of flight credits does your airline offer and what are the rules and restrictions governing each type of credit?” they asked, adding, “For each type of credit, what is the total value your airline has issued during the coronavirus pandemic?”
A spokesperson for United Airlines, one of the 10 companies that received a letter, told the Washington Examiner that the airline’s policy for pandemic-related vouchers covers all tickets booked since May 2019 and that “the vast majority of our customers shouldn’t have any tickets expiring any time soon.”
“We extended ticket validity for tickets purchased between May 1, 2019, and March 31, 2021,” the spokesperson said. “Those tickets are extended through March 31, 2022, to give customers extra time to use for travel. Tickets purchased April 1, 2021, and after have a 12-month validity from the date of purchase.”
Delta Air Lines pointed to a recent announcement that all travel credits originally scheduled to expire this year and all tickets purchased in 2021 will expire on Dec. 31, 2022.
“Delta continues to provide full refunds to eligible passengers requesting them when we have canceled a flight or made a significant schedule change,” a company spokesperson told the Washington Examiner, adding that Delta processed more than 6.7 million refunds valued at over $3 billion in 2020.
Southwest Airlines and American Airlines both declined to comment on their policies or the letter, referring the Washington Examiner to Airlines For America, an airline trade association of which they are members.
“In 2020, U.S. passenger airlines issued $12.84 billion in cash refunds to customers — up 72 percent year over year — in addition to issuing billions of dollars of travel credits,” Airlines for America told the Washington Examiner in a statement, adding, “Many carriers have bolstered their commitment to consumers by offering voucher and credit opportunities exceeding the Department of Transportation’s guidelines.”
Markey and Blumenthal addressed their letters to Alaska Airlines, Allegiant Air, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and United Airlines.
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The two senators, along with Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Chris Murphy, and then-Sen. Kamala Harris, introduced legislation last year that would require airlines to offer full cash refunds for pandemic-related cancellations, though the bill did not make it out of committee.
Air travel decreased substantially throughout 2020 and 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Data from the Transportation Security Administration show that 1.7 million customers traveled through TSA checkpoints on Monday, an increase from the 200,815 travelers on the same day last year but still a drop from the more than 2.4 million travelers on this date in 2019. No day in 2021 has seen 2 million or more travelers pass through TSA security.
