From the U.S. Government Accountability Office, www.gao.gov Transcript for: Airline Passenger Protections Description: How does the Department of Transportation handle commercial airline passenger complaints? This podcast covers a GAO report exploring that question. Related GAO Work: GAO-19-76: Airline Consumer Protections: Additional Actions Could Enhance DOT's Compliance and Education Efforts Released: November 2018 [ Background Music ] [ Andrew Von Ah: ] DOT didn't consistently have performance measures in place to measure the impact of its various compliance efforts. [ Matt Oldham: ] Welcome to GAO's Watchdog Report, your source for news and information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. I'm Matt Oldham. There are plenty of reasons the Department of Transportation might receive a complaint from an airline passenger. Damaged luggage, removal from an overbooked flight, or hidden fees are just a few examples. And it's DOT's job to issue and enforce certain passenger protection requirements and to educate passengers on their rights. I'm with Andrew Von Ah, a director who led a GAO report looking at how the federal government handles airline passenger issues. Andrew, is the Department of Transportation doing what they should for passengers? [ Andrew Von Ah: ] Well, generally, they are doing a number of things to both improve passenger protections and also ensure compliance and unfortunately those rules for the airlines. But we found in this report that there are a number of things that they could improve to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of how they go about it. Now, certainly, if you're a passenger who has experienced a long delay or a lost bag or you're stuck in a tight middle seat in the back of the plane, you may not necessarily feel that DOT is doing enough for you personally, but they are doing a number of things within the resources that they have. [ Matt Oldham: ] Are there any hurdles that the department is facing as they protect these passenger rights? [ Andrew Von Ah: ] There are, and certainly the number of complaints has been on the rise in recent years. Our report found that the number has generally increased over the last 5 years. Last year, there were something like 18,000 complaints that the department processed. One of the reasons for that is, you know, as the airline industry has evolved and changed, they're looking to get more passengers on planes. They're putting new rows of seats. It can be more cramped. And they're doing a better job, frankly, of managing their capacity and flying with full planes. So as you do that, customers come into contact with one another. You may have increasing numbers of emotional support animals on a plane, things of that nature that can lead to situations where customers, it's not always a pleasant experience to fly. [ Matt Oldham: ] What does the Department of Transportation do with the complaints that they receive? [ Andrew Von Ah: ] The first thing they do is code the complaints relative to whether they, from the passenger's perspective, and whether or not these complaints sort of relate to an area that has a customer protection in place. They respond to the passenger who complained and let them know that they're looking into it, and they work with their airlines themselves to let them know that their, these complaints have been lodged and how to go about mitigating any issues going forward. [ Matt Oldham: ] So how does the Department of Transportation know how well they're doing as they respond to these passenger complaints? [ Andrew Von Ah: ] And that's one of the findings of our report is that we found that, you know, certainly as you're pursuing all of your compliance activities, you want to be able to track how well you're doing and how, what kind of impact you're having. And we found that DOT didn't really have performance measures in place to allow them to be able to not only understand sort of how well they're doing in that area, but also to be able to target resources going forward. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] So it sounds like we're seeing some improvements in this area when it comes to the passenger experience on commercial airlines. So Andrew, what recommendations did your team have? [ Andrew Von Ah: ] Well, a common theme we found in our work was that DOT didn't consistently have performance measures in place to measure the impact of its various compliance efforts. So for example, it doesn't have performance measures around the number of airline inspections it conducts, its enforcement actions, or its passenger education outreach efforts, among other things. So we recommended that they develop such measures and goals to be able to track, you know, basically how well they're doing in these compliance efforts. [ Matt Oldham: ] So what do you believe is the bottom line of your report? [ Andrew Von Ah: ] While service is improving in some ways in terms of better on-time performance and less mishandled and lost baggage, complaints are still on the rise. And so, you know, I think the bottom line here is that while DOT has consumer protections in place and they have a number of activities to ensure airline compliance, there are opportunities for them to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their actions. [ Matt Oldham: ] Andrew Von Ah is a Physical Infrastructure director here at GAO, and he was talking about a GAO report looking at how the Department of Transportation handles airline consumer protections. Thank you for your time, Andrew. [ Andrew Von Ah: ] Thank you very much. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] And thank you for listening to the Watchdog Report. To hear more podcasts, subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts. [ Background Music ] [ Matt Oldham: ] For more from the congressional watchdog, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, visit us at gao.gov.