{"id":14418,"date":"2020-09-01T14:48:30","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T14:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/?p=14418"},"modified":"2021-02-23T11:37:35","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T11:37:35","slug":"delta-and-american-ending-change-fees-another-victory-for-consumers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/delta-and-american-ending-change-fees-another-victory-for-consumers\/","title":{"rendered":"Delta and American ending change fees another victory for consumers"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"av_textblock_section \"  itemscope=\"itemscope\" itemtype=\"https:\/\/schema.org\/BlogPosting\" itemprop=\"blogPost\" ><div class='avia_textblock  '   itemprop=\"text\" ><p>Media contact: National Consumers League \u2013 Carol McKay, carolm@nclnet.org, (412) 945-3242\u00a0or Taun Sterling, tauns@nclnet.org, (202)\u00a0207-2832<\/p>\n<p>Washington, DC\u2014The National Consumers League (NCL) today applauded Delta Airlines and American Airlines for their decisions to end ticket changes fees. The decision, prompted by United Airlines\u2019 decision on Sunday to end change fees, comes after nearly a decade of advocacy by NCL and other consumer organizations to put an end to such outrageous fees.<\/p>\n<p>While the end of change fees at the Big Three airlines is a victory for consumers, the airlines continue to collect billions of dollars in add-on fees for services such as baggage, seat reservations, and early boarding. In addition, low-cost carriers like Spirit and Frontier and smaller airlines like JetBlue, Hawaiian, and Alaska continue to charge exorbitant change fees.<\/p>\n<p>The following statement is attributable to National Consumers League Executive Director Sally Greenberg:<\/p>\n<p>Following United\u2019s lead, Delta and American have taken the right step for their customers by ending change fees. Consumers often need to change a ticket reservation due to circumstances beyond their control. We don\u2019t think they should be penalized to the tune of hundreds of dollars when life\u2019s uncertainties interfere with travel plans.<\/p>\n<p>While Delta has committed to ending change fees permanently and American has agreed to also end change fees on some international flights, more needs to be done to ensure that change fees are consigned to the dustbin of aviation industry history. The commitment to not charge change fees should be included in all three airlines\u2019 contracts of carriage, the legally binding document that underpins each ticket. Without this action, we fear that the airlines will simply slide back into their old ways when the economy rebounds from the COVID-19 crisis or when a new CEO takes over.<\/p>\n<p>Congress should also continue to push for legislation like the FAIR Fees Act, which will promote transparency and fairness in the air travel marketplace for all consumers, not just customers of the biggest airlines. NCL will continue to advocate for such common-sense consumer protection legislation.<\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the National Consumers League (NCL)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America&#8217;s pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to protect and promote social and economic justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad. For more information, visit <a href=\"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.nclnet.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[285,14,286,420,280],"tags":[412],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14418"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14418"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14420,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14418\/revisions\/14420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}