While airlines and the people running them have always had clashes with regulators and the wider Department of Transportation, we now find ourselves at a time when tensions are running particularly high.

After the Biden administration took key steps toward cracking down on the many hidden fees that airlines charge passengers and requiring them to seat families with children under the age of 14 together free of charge, the “big three” airlines in the country came together to challenge the new law in court.

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Buttigieg responds to Delta CEO’s comments calling Trump ‘breath of fresh air’

At a recent investor panel held shortly after Donald Trump got re-elected for a second term as president, Delta CEO Ed Bastian expressed hopes that the latter would “take a fresh look at the regulatory environment, the bureaucracy that exists in government, the level of overreach that we have seen over the last four years within our industry.” 

In a comment that stirred immediate controversy given Trump’s history of far-right policies and controversial statements, Bastian went even further in saying that he believes the new administration “will be a breath of fresh air.”

A month later, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg referenced Bastian’s comments in an interview with the New York Times.

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‘Plenty profitable even as we require them to take better care of passengers’

“I think anyone who says that the last few years are an overreach is out of touch with his customers, because the public response to this work has been overwhelmingly positive,” Buttigieg told journalist Christine Chung. “I would add it’s been perfectly consistent with good business outcomes at an airline like Delta, which is plenty profitable, even as we require them to take better care of passengers.”

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Buttigieg further said that he does not believe a Trump administration will spell good things for the industry. Several experts have predicted a rollback of the laws requiring automatic refunds in the event of flight cancelations within the airline’s control and hidden charges that annoy travelers across the political spectrum.

A recent report from the Senate’s Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations called “The Sky’s The Limit” showed that Delta, United  (UAL) , American Airlines  (AAL) , Spirit Airlines  (SAVE)  and Frontier Airlines  (FRON)  earned a total of $12.4 billion by charging passengers in economy to sit next to their kids or other specific passengers between 2018 and 2023.

This includes the $1.3 billion in seating fees that specifically United earned during the same time period while the report also named the $26 million that Spirit and Frontier spent to have gate agents to catch passengers trying to bring a bag weighing more than their fare class allows.

“We want airlines to succeed,” Buttigieg said further. “We just want them to succeed by doing the right thing, and if they won’t do that on their own, we will implement policies to require it. I would not assume that a change in party will change the approach, because it’s not like only Democrats are telling us they love these airline refund rules.”

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