Following a 12 percent decrease from September to October, U.S. air travel complaints in November increased 23 percent month over month, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The agency in November received 6,616 consumer complaints versus the 5,379 filed in October. The November figure is 603 percent higher than the 941 complaints received in November 2019. Nearly 56 percent of the complaints were against U.S. carriers, about 36.5 percent were against foreign carriers and nearly 8 percent were against travel companies.
The most common reason for a complaint, at nearly 31 percent, concerned refunds, followed by flight problems (26.3 percent) which include cancellations, delays or other deviations from airlines' schedules. The third most frequent reason regarded baggage issues, at nearly 13 percent. In November, carriers handled 38.2 million bags and mishandled baggage at a rate of 0.51 percent, which is higher than the October rate of 0.49 percent and the November 2019 rate of 0.47 percent.
U.S. airlines operated more than 561,000 domestic flights in November, down 2.1 percent year over year and 5 percent month over month, according to DOT. That figure is about 86 percent of the number operated in November 2019.
For the month, the 10 reporting network carriers scheduled more than 567,500 domestic flights of which 1.1 percent were canceled, compared with about 0.6 percent that canceled in November 2021 and 0.9 percent in November 2019, when the carriers had scheduled more than 655,000 flights.
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