As summer vacation begins with Memorial Day, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks with Brian Sozzi about what consumers should expect during the upcoming busy travel season.
The summer travel season is expected to be the busiest ever, putting pressure on airlines and airports to keep flights and security checkpoints on time, according to TSA forecasts. Secretary Buttigieg said travelers should “plan a little extra and be patient during the busy holiday weekend. He also urges air travelers to make sure they understand their rights.” “It has said.
“If your flight gets canceled and you can't get on the plane, you don't have to ask for a refund. You'll just get your money back,” he said, citing automatic refunds as a big improvement. He added that the Department of Transport is looking into unrealistic flight schedules and is already reviewing them. “We want America's airlines to succeed and prosper, and we want them to do that through excellent customer service and honest practices,” he explained. Masu.
Secretary Buttigieg also said the Department of Transportation is addressing the pilot shortage, increasing pay and expanding training programs. He emphasizes that flight attendants, air traffic controllers and mechanics are also important to the industry as demand for air travel soars.
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This post was written by Melanie Leal
Video Transcript
Memorial Day marks the beginning of a very busy summer travel season.
Travel numbers are likely to exceed pre-pandemic levels of about 43.8 million, making it the busiest Memorial Day holiday weekend in nearly two decades, according to AAA.
U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg joins me now. Secretary of Transportation, it's always a pleasure to spend a little time with you.
So we've talked a lot about how American airports are just disrupted by these large crowds.
What should consumers expect this weekend?
Well, we're very encouraged by last year's results.
Last year's flight cancellation rate was, uh, the lowest in 10 years. That includes having some of the busiest travel days ever recorded last year with, um, very smooth sailing.
So what I'm looking at this year is, can the airlines and airports in this country sustain that as more travelers come?
Well, many of TS's predictions suggest that the summer travel season will be the busiest ever.
Memorial Day is just the beginning.
Of course, we're happy about what that means economically, but it's still a big challenge for the system.
AAA expects about 3 million travelers to pass through TS a checkpoints on Friday alone, making it the busiest day of the Memorial Day weekend.
As far as air travel is concerned, it's definitely a good idea for travelers and tourists alike to plan ahead a little and be patient.
We encourage them to make sure they understand their rights.
A lot has changed over the past few years, introducing new rules and new passenger protections to ensure airlines are able to accommodate you, especially if you experience any disruption.
And the responsibility lies with airliners.
Um, Secretary, of course, many of these airlines are publicly, um, these airlines are in many ways actually publicly traded Delta JetBlue.
You name it.
So they want to make a lot of money.
Well, on weekends like Memorial Day, planes fill up, but in terms of schedules, do airlines in this country adjust their schedules?
In reality, this was a major concern, especially in the summer of '22 when there were significant delays and airlines seemed unprepared to accommodate the schedules they were actually selling.
So what I'm focusing on now is results.
While the results have certainly improved, I think one of the side benefits of the automatic refund rules we recently introduced is that if your flight gets canceled and you don't make it, you don't have to ask for a refund.
It just comes to you.
Would that really change the economics of airlines, which have often been tempted to set unrealistic schedules?
Whenever we have a valid concern about an unrealistic schedule within our department, we will investigate it.
There are indeed some investigations underway and if it is determined that that happened, there will be consequences associated with it.
Of course, the best way to deal with all of this is for airlines to do the right thing first.
Look, we want them to succeed.
We want American airlines to succeed and prosper.
We want them to provide excellent customer service and do it through honest practices.
Mr. Secretary, how much progress have we made in resolving the pilot shortage?
So from our conversations with the sector, pilot availability is clearly improving.
Pilot salaries are increasing at an alarming rate. It's not just captains of wide-body, long-range aircraft who can earn more than $500,000 a year.
However, I was encouraged by the entry level.
The other end of the carrier pipeline at paid regional airlines is undergoing some notable improvements.
Well, of course, raising salaries is another thing.
It took some time for the training pipeline to catch up. Especially because of the strict criteria we have for what is required to qualify for safety reasons.
But again, we're really, really seeing improvement. On the pilot side, we will continue to pay attention to mechanics. It's an area where the skilled labor market can be very tight.
Um, and, uh, we're looking at our flight attendants and making sure that they're being well taken care of and, uh, making sure that that pipeline is strong, and by the way, we're doing the same thing. At the FAA.
Hiring more air traffic controllers This was just Congress asking for funding to hire 2,000 air traffic controllers.
Well, next year we'll finally reverse a decade of decline in the number of air traffic controllers, on top of the 1,800 we're hiring this year and the 1,500 we hired last year. In fact, it can be said that the downward trend has been halted.
Now we are trying to accelerate it and rise again.
