I can tell you without hesitation: Both the airlines and the Transportation Department are at fault. Only Congress and the Transportation Department oversee airlines, and the department and its subsidiary, the FAA, have long struggled with a dual mandate to both promote and regulate airlines. Obviously the airline industry also has become too big to care, despite the $54 billion taxpayer bailout during Covid. Since then, the U.S. airline industry has returned to profitability and, in some cases, notched record revenues. Domestic airlines are mistreating passengers with impunity and are clearly unafraid of backlash from consumers, the media or the Transportation Department.

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