Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include additional reporting and comments.
The Biden administration last week announced a new rule promising that when airlines cancel or significantly delay flights, passengers will automatically be given their money back without having to “navigate a patchwork of cumbersome processes to request and receive a refund, searching through airline websites to figure out how make the request, filling out extra ‘digital paperwork,’ or at times waiting for hours on the phone.”
But just days after that announcement generated celebratory headlines, four congressional lawmakers overseeing aviation policy began advancing legislation that includes a provision potentially reimposing those cumbersome processes on passengers, despite pleas from federal regulators that they refrain from doing so.
Airline lobbyists are now citing the legislation's language as a rationale for ignoring or challenging the Biden administration’s new rule.
The lawmakers are four of the six largest congressional recipients of campaign cash from the airline industry in the current election cycle, according to data from the government transparency group OpenSecrets.
