By The Star Staff
In order to guarantee fair treatment to all travelers who use the Luis Muñoz Marín and Rafael Hernández international airports, Rep. José Aponte Hernández requested on Thursday that the Tourism Company and the Ports Authority investigate the operational practice of some airlines to “grant” flight vouchers with serious restrictions to travelers who bought their tickets during the most important part of the season during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
“We have seen an increase in complaints from consumers who bought tickets to travel during the pandemic, whose flights were canceled and now, almost three years later, airlines do not want to refund the money, replacing them with ‘vouchers’ with very high and complex requirements that make them almost impossible to use,” the veteran lawmaker said. “Our goal is to know how many Puerto Ricans are in this situation and how we can help them, so we ask both agencies to provide more guidance to consumers.”
The former speaker of the House of Representatives’ statement comes after the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) revealed that complaints against airlines have skyrocketed in 2023 – by 68% compared to 2022.
Meanwhile, the complaints that the DOT resolves in favor of the traveler in relation to 2020 are not received in good faith by the airlines, Aponte Hernández noted.
Ángel Alverio, president of the Puerto Rico chapter of the American Society of Travel Agents, said “a large number of these complaints are in reference to flights during the COVID-19 pandemic that had not been resolved.”