POTUS Implores Airlines to Pay for People’s Delayed Bags

Thanks, Obama

By The Editors
October 21, 2016 9:00 am

That the airlines should have to compensate you for lost luggage seems only fair. But what if your baggage is delayed, especially after you paid that $35 fee to check the damn thing? There’s no compensation for that agita.

But there might be … at least a reimbursement for the checked bag fee. The Obama Administration is recommending that very thing. In fact, the bag fee is relatively new, started by airlines when oil was pricy and then kept in place even after fuel prices dropped.

This proposal comes as part of a new set of regulations with which the airlines must comply by January 2018. Among these: airlines must accurately report the frequency in which they arrive on-time arrival, how they handle luggage and whether they bungle wheelchair requests.

Cue the airlines: suits and pilots shaking their heads, before sending out a polished admonishment that such reporting will only complicate their job further and make all of our lives worse. Naturally, the consumer travel organizations are pleased.

For our part, it’s a fine parting gift from the acting POTUS, to which we say in earnest: “Thanks, Obama.”

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