The Department of Transportation (DOT) has improved their website and has packed it with consumer-friendly information all in one place.
The new website has a process for consumers who want to file complaints about airline service and safety. The new process allows phone calls to a Washington, DC, number, letters to the Aviation Consumer Protection Division and now an online form to report complaints.
And that’s just the beginning.
Hallelujah! With this improved online complaint system, more passengers will be able to easily file their comments. I’ll bet an iPhone app will soon appear to make it even easier for travelers to send complaints to DOT from their mobile devices.
The new website launched by the Aviation Consumer Protection and Enforcement division of the DOT is a big change and makes life easier for airline consumers. It is gratifying to see these kinds of improvements for consumers coming out of Washington.
This is the homepage interface:
Besides the section for filing consumer complaints, the DOT site includes the Air Travel Consumer Report that provides monthly data about on-time arrivals and departures, income from fees and baggage handling data, plus more.
Consumers can also find DOT rules, guidelines and enforcement actions, aviation safety and security documents, DOT travel publications and news about airline bankruptcies.
Other features are travel tips and a list of contact information for each airline’s customer relations manager.
The new DOT, amazingly, also has instructions for filing actions against the airlines in small claims court.
Charlie Leocha is the President of Travelers United. He has been working in Washington, DC, for the past 14 years with Congress, the Department of Transportation, and industry stakeholders on travel issues. He was the first consumer representative to the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protections appointed by the Secretary of Transportation from 2012 through 2018.
