American Airlines has been fined £55,300 by the US Department of Transportation for not telling bumped passengers that they would have to pay to use their flight vouchers.
The airline routinely hands out the vouchers to passengers on overbooked flights. But the DoT ruled that it systematically failed to reveal that passengers would have to pay a $30 ticketing fee to redeem the vouchers.
The carrier also didn’t tell passengers that they couldn’t use the vouchers at all on the airline’s website.
American actually stopped charging passengers for using the vouchers over the phone four years ago but didn’t tell passengers that in order for them not to pay they had to send the vouchers in the post at least three weeks before travel.
Until 2010, it was also charging passengers who used the vouchers at airline counters.
by Dinah Hatch
