Flight delays? Snow problem.

Michael Do Thoi

Hello, Michi here from the support team! Join me as I reflect on the stresses of air travel.

Winter holidays are coming up. For many, that means the opportunity to gather and celebrate with loved ones, unwind and reflect on the past and coming years. Unfortunately, it also often means braving the chaos of holiday travel. I remember a Christmas when my sister and her then-partner couldn’t fly out of London due to a snowstorm, so they found a willing cabbie who ferried them across the channel the morning of Christmas Eve.

Less dramatically, this year when I attempted to check in for a flight to Crete, I was informed that my boarding pass wouldn’t have a seat number — because, apparently, there were no more seats left to hand out. I hung around the gate until boarding completed, just in case someone didn’t show up, and once the plane departed — with three hours delay, mind you — I filled out a claims form online and made my merry way to a different airport to take a different flight.

A few weeks after being bumped off, I was notified that I would receive the cost of my flight plus 400 euros in compensation for the experience. I was eligible to get it because EU regulation makes very specific stipulations about what airlines owe their passengers when flights are delayed or boarding is denied. (The full four pages are worth reading should you ever find yourself with three hours to kill at an airport gate.) In any case, the saga stuck with me enough that I decided to use this Weekly Chart to research the data of flight delays and compensation.

I found a dataset listing all delayed U.S. domestic flights in 2022 — but then I ran into a problem. It turns out that there is no such consumer protection law in the U.S. Different airlines set their own parameters around compensation, but none of them commit to cash compensation for delays of over three hours. However, there have been proposals to codify an EU-style right to compensation. The U.S. Department of Transportation is suggesting a tiered approach with compensation of:

• $200–$300 for domestic delays of 3–6 hours
• $375-$525 for delays of 6–9 hours
• $750-$775 for delays over 9 hours

Nearly 5% of the delayed winter holiday flights in my chart fall into these ranges, so a lot of passengers stand to gain if the rule is implemented (and airlines stand to lose a lot of money). With the winter holiday season, and travel more broadly, often being stressful enough as is, perhaps in the near future this’ll be one less thing for affected passengers to worry about.

That’s it from me, thanks for reading and tune in next week for Marten’s Weekly Chart. Happy holidays and may your travels be extremely punctual!

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Michael Do Thoi

(he/him) is on the support and customer success team. If you’re trying to figure something out in Datawrapper, he’s all ears (and eyes, if you message support@datawrapper.de). When not talking or typing, Michi’s probably thinking deeply about food or music. He lives in Berlin.

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