Why Does Flying Have To Suck?

1A

NPR

News

4.3 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 20 November 2023

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Complaints against U.S. airlines hit a record high in 2022. And it's not getting any better. Consumer complaints nearly doubled in the first three months of this year, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

With only four major airlines in the U.S., there's little choice for consumers in the market. And with air travel expected to reach a record high this holiday season, many will be subjected to the worst of travel: long lines, high prices, and of course, awful airplane food.

But why does our time in flight have to be riddled with anguish? And what can be done to make the skies friendly again?

For that, we're turning to Ganesh Sitaraman, a professor at Vanderbilt University Law School and director of the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator. He's also out with the new book, "Why Flying is Miserable: And How to Fix It."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for this podcast and the following message come from the Southern Environmental Law Center and its podcast Broken Ground.
0:06.8	This season, meet the environmental storytellers reimagining how people get their news.
0:11.7	New episodes available wherever you listen to podcasts. So tell me how American Airlines can cancel your flight and then not
0:27.2	rebook you on something, put you on standby and have you waited an airport for
0:30.9	24 hours and tell you that the next flight that you can get is in six
0:36.4	days.
0:37.4	So we have 200 passengers on this flight right now.
0:41.0	How long have you been waiting?
0:42.4	Seven hours? Seven hours? So they told us it was
0:44.9	going to be 30 minutes and we're all still on this flight at 1044 Spirit.
0:51.4	Six hours in a plane in Newark, New Jersey, and we never got off the ground.
0:57.0	We're going back to the terminal, and this is the line to get out of the plane.
1:01.0	Everything's been canceled.
1:02.0	Welcome to Modern American Air Transportation.
1:06.7	Complaints against U.S. Airlines had a record high last year and it's not getting any better.
1:11.5	Consumer complaints nearly doubled in the first three months of this year,
1:14.4	that's according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. With only four major airlines,
1:19.5	United Delta, American, and Southwest, in the U.S. controlling about 80% of the market, there's little
1:25.4	choice. And with air travel expected to reach a record high this holiday season, many will
1:31.0	be subjected to the worst of travel, long lines, high prices and seating space
1:36.0	that seems to be shrinking by the year.
1:38.8	So why does our time in flight have to be riddled with anguish, and what can be done to make the skies friendly again.
	...

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