MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) – The Department of Transportation is threatening to crack down on airlines amid flight delays and cancellations throughout the summer.
the DOT says airlines must be held accountable for these major disruptions.
A Milwaukee resident who had planned a trip to Mexico in July echoed the department’s sentiment, saying her recent trips have left her traumatized.
“Hot and humid, it was completely packed, there were hundreds of angry people who had their flights cancelled, just pure chaos everywhere,” Jade Bell said.
Instead of pictures of the sandy beaches of Mexico, Bell of Milwaukee said her trip was a complete bust.
“We had to cancel the whole trip,” Bell said.
Bell successfully made it from Milwaukee to her connecting flight in Dallas, which is where this traveler says her nightmare began.
“We were in line for two and a half hours just to talk to someone,” Bell said.
Arriving at the gate in DFW to board her flight to Mexico, she was met with a flight cancellation sign.
Bell said she added her name to the standby list for the next flight, but that was unsuccessful.
“Your names are not on the standby list and I was completely devastated to be told only this eleven hours later,” Bell said.
The traveler said the airline tried to offer her a hotel room, but this Milwaukeean couldn’t get a break.
“The employee wrote us a voucher for an overnight stay in a hotel, we found out that the hotel burned down five days before landing,” said Bell.
However, Bell is not alone in its woes, travel experts say these disruptions date back to the beginning of COVID.
“With the airlines having problems with personal, it has cost nothing but nightmares for many travelers,” said Mark Wimberly, owner of Making Memories Travel.
Now travelers like Bell are calling on airlines to do what she says is the right thing.
“I want a full refund, I think I think it’s completely unreasonable to deduct any part of it for something that was completely out of my control,” Bell said.
Experts say a major source of these airline disruptions stems from labor shortages.
“Pilots took buyouts to leave the airlines, these were all senior employees, many of them were close to retirement, and then when it came back as quickly as it did, those pilots didn’t come back, and to open up new pilots and training takes a long time,” Wimberly said.
