The travel boom that followed the heart of the pandemic has been a windfall for airlines, hotels, and tourist destinations. But as people hit the open road, they’re not happy with the carriers taking them on their vacations.
Passengers lodged 60,732 complaints between January and November of last year, according to a new report by U.S. PIRG Education Fund. That’s nearly four times as high as the 15,432 received in 2019.
It’s worth noting that the 2022 figure does not include the array of complaints that came in December, when Southwest had a system meltdown that left many travelers stranded as the holidays approached. That figure is not yet available. Also noteworthy is the fact that the number of people who flew last year was below the total air traffic in the pre-pandemic year.
“The airlines have made short-sighted decisions about staffing, scheduling, and technology,” said Teresa Murray, author of the report, in a statement. “Bad weather can be a factor in cancellations but storms don’t treat customers poorly: Airlines do. We wouldn’t see this avalanche of complaints if airlines took better care of travelers.”
Two complaints top travelers’ issues with carriers: an inability to get refunds for their cancelled flights, and those cancellations and delays.
Airlines cancelled over 190,000 flights last year, the group says, which works out to 2.7% of all scheduled flights. Only two events in the past 20 years have resulted in more disruptions—the first year of the pandemic and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Meanwhile, 1.44 million flights—20.6% of those in the sky—were delayed. And airlines lost, damaged, or delayed nearly 3 million pieces of luggage last year.
“Just about everything negative got worse in 2022,” the report read.