On Wednesday, no-frills carrier Frontier Airlines unveiled its latest optional fee, dubbed Disruption Assistance for Any Reason.
If customers buy the add-on at the time of ticketing, the airline promises that passengers whose flights are canceled or delayed by more than 2 hours are entitled to benefits "including booking an alternate flight on any airline or opting for a 100% refund."
The add-on's rebooking feature covers flights "on any airline to the same destination for the same or next day if your flight is delayed or canceled," Frontier explains. If you don't want to rebook, you can get a full refund, minus what you paid the airline to get the trip insurance.
The amount customers are charged for the benefit depends on how much they paid for their tickets. For example, a passenger taking a brief round-trip flight between Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale with a base price of about $92 would pay another $3.50 for Disruption Assistance, while a longer round-trip itinerary between New York City and Boise that costs $381.46 would cost $21 more to get the coverage.
The add-on is provided by a third party, Hopper Technology Solutions.
It all sounds pretty good!
But it also sounds very familiar.
In Europe, you get similar rights automatically.
Standard passenger protection rules in Europe guarantee refunds of €250 to €600, depending on the length of the route, if a flight is delayed more than 3 hours. Everyone also gets the option to rebook on another airline, just as Frontier's coverage allows.
The amount of Europe's standard compensation would usually be more than enough to cover Frontier's base fares.
The major difference is that Europe's protections kick in automatically—without you having to pay a cent for the privilege—after a 3-hour delay. Frontier's paid version kicks in at 2 hours.
No wonder U.S. airlines have been so aggressive in their legal fight to thwart the new passenger protections that the outgoing Biden administration hurriedly tried to put into place last year.
Airlines can just sell Americans those rights instead.
Except even Frontier's paid coverage doesn't come close to Europe's standard protections. In Europe, if your flight is delayed and you're stranded, you're also entitled to meals and accommodation, including transit to the hotel.
Frontier's paid add-on doesn't include that.
Last year, former Department of Transportation head Pete Buttigieg tried to implement the same protection for Americans. He announced a rule providing for meals and hotels during delays and, as required by law, opened the proposal to a public comment period last December.
The rule has been in limbo ever since, and the current U.S. government is extremely unlikely to move the ball forward to match Europe's protections.
Knowing what we know about the current administration, Americans are not likely to be automatically granted European-style rights anytime soon—not as long as airlines could make another dollar selling us that coverage.
Frontier's latest move is a depressing sign that the airlines have an incentive to stymie government-granted consumer protections so that companies can sell us the same protections at a premium instead. Our rights have become their piggy bank.