New DOT rule mandates proactive refunds for inflight Wi-Fi disruptions

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GLOBAL INDUSTRY NEWS

Becca Alkema Operations Manager and Contributing Writer | Runway Girl Network

By Sky Industry News

Jul 3, 2024

A new US Department of Transportation (DOT) final rule, requiring airlines to proactively issue refunds to passengers who pay for inflight Wi-Fi but do not receive the service, took effect on June 25. This regulation is part of a series of consumer protections introduced by the Biden-Harris Administration.

The rule mandates automatic refunds when a US or foreign carrier cancels or significantly changes a scheduled flight to, from, or within the US without offering alternative transportation or compensation. Additionally, it requires refunds for fees covering ancillaries such as Wi-Fi and checked baggage if the bag is significantly delayed. Notably, airlines must issue refunds even if Wi-Fi is available for only part of the flight.

The DOT clarified that partial service still entitles consumers to a refund: “The Department does consider partial service such as providing Wi-Fi service for only a portion of the flight when a consumer paid for Wi-Fi service to entitle a consumer to a refund.” The DOT also stated that this applies when carriers fail to fulfill their obligation to provide the service, rather than when the quality of the purchased ancillary service does not meet passenger expectations.

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However, air travel ancillaries provided by independent third-party providers not acting as agents or contractors of an airline are exempt from this refund requirement. Panasonic Avionics had sought clarity on this point.

NetForecast's Role

NetForecast has been monitoring passenger experience for inflight Wi-Fi over the past four years and believes it can help airlines establish guidelines for setting a "fair and reasonable" threshold for Wi-Fi service availability. NetForecast measures Quality of Service (QoS) and network performance at the user level, assessing actual passenger experience in-flight.

Rebecca Wetzel, president of NetForecast, explained: “It is important that Wi-Fi service availability be measured from user devices because measurements taken within the network cannot reflect what the passenger is actually experiencing. To help airlines comply with the new rule, we provide airlines with seat-level Wi-Fi availability data by flight so fees can be proactively refunded.”

Even before this rule was implemented, granular data enabled airlines to track dead spots on certain flight paths and anticipate connectivity issues. Now, setting thresholds seems essential for any airline serving the US market and charging for inflight Wi-Fi. This information should be clearly communicated at payment time.

Frequent flyers are familiar with inflight connectivity outages and dead zones, especially on international flights over water. Wetzel noted: “One of the things that we’re finding monitoring thousands of flights is that almost every flight has a period during which there’s a service interruption... We measure the percentage of a flight that has a service interruption and factor that into our QoE in addition to actual latency loss and bandwidth.”

Setting thresholds as percentage figures would mean passengers receive refunds if disconnected for that percentage of time or more — provided this is clearly stipulated upfront. Knowing who’s connected, who’s paid, and who had connection issues would enable prompt refunds even before complaints arise.

It remains uncertain whether this rule will push more carriers towards offering free Wi-Fi models. However, even where Wi-Fi is free, airlines commit to providing a service; failure to deliver could have future implications.