2020 may have been a slow year for air travel, but it was the busiest ever for complaints about airlines and travel agencies, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
And that's only the complaints that were filed there, when travelers didn't get their refunds or a satisfactory response from the airline or agent. DoT complaints are the last resort, but for many travelers in 2020 it was the only resort they could visit, and they wanted their money back.
The DoT's Air Travel Consumer Report lists 102,550 complaints for 2020, compared with 15,342 in 2019—nearly seven times as many—and all but 10% of them were complaints about refunds. About 87% were about airlines and the rest were about online travel agents. Airline complaints split 60/40 between international and domestic carriers.
The first half of the year saw the heaviest volume of complaints as air travel shut down and airlines tried to delay on refunds or offer vouchers to conserve cash, even when refunds were required. DoT says most complaints were eventually resolved.
United racked up about 1 in 3 of all domestic airline complaints, taking a harder line initially despite DoT warnings. Weighted by passenger miles, the complaint leader was Frontier with 50 complaints per 100,000 boardings, followed by Hawaiian with 38 and United with 30. The comparable for 2019 was 1.41.
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