During nearly four-and-a-half hours before the House
Infrastructure & Transportation Committee Tuesday, airline executives detailed
their strategies to reduce passenger bumping and improve customer service.
Committee members indicated they might step in with regulations should those
remedies prove ineffective.
The committee grilled American Airlines, United Airlines,
Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines over a litany of woes—bag fees, delays
and seat comfort, to name a few—last month's forcible
removal of a passenger from a United flight was at the core of the
discussion. United CEO Oscar Munoz detailed the significant
policy overhaul the carrier announced last week, including reduced
overbooking, a $10,000 compensation ceiling for denied boarding and increased
training. "This is a turning point for United," Munoz said.
"It's my mission to ensure we make the changes needed to provide our
customers with the highest level of service and deepest sense of respect."
Other carriers also said the incident spurred them to review
their policies in order to reduce denied boarding instances. American already
had announced
a policy to never ask passengers to give up seats after boarding, and now
it has increased the number of employees who manage overbooking situations and established
a hotline for gate agents who need to offer compensation in those situations,
SVP of customer experience Kerry Philipovitch said. "We have not
established an upper limit on what we will pay to solicit volunteers," she
said. "We have entrusted our team to make the best decisions to serve our
customers."
Alaska Airlines SVP of external relations Joseph Sprague
said the carrier is "actively looking at policies" to reduce denied boarding
instances, including granting customer service agents explicit discretion over
compensation. Like American, that does not include a specific dollar amount, though
Alaska might consider a "high-value, maximum upper limit" at some
point, he said.
For its part, Southwest chief commercial officer and EVP Bob
Jordan reiterated the carrier's recent decision to end
overbooking altogether on May 8.
The
carriers also emphasized that passengers are bumped infrequently and that the
U.S. airline industry's customer service scores have improved over the past few
years. Nonetheless, even House Transportation Committee members who usually
lean away from new regulations said federal intervention is not off the table. "I
shouldn't need to remind you that Congress will not hesitate to act, whenever
necessary, to ensure your customers are treated with the respect they
deserve," committee chair Bill Shuster said. "If we don't see meaningful
results that improve customer service, the next time this committee meets to
address this issue, I can assure you that you will not like the outcome."