The largest Russian airline Aeroflot has been fined $ 60,000 by the US Department of Transportation. The reason for this incident was the violation by the Russian carrier of the rules governing the protection of passengers' rights.
In January 2012, the US Department of Transportation passed legislation requiring airlines to provide passengers with the full price of a ticket, including all taxes and fees. Also, the carrier must, without any fines, give the client the opportunity to cancel the order for the ticket within the first day after its implementation.
These rules apply not only to American, but also to foreign airlines flying to the United States. It was them that Aeroflot violated, and the information testifying to the violation was found by the US Department of Transportation not just anywhere, but on its official website. In the advertising information presented on it, the prices were indicated without taking into account some additional payments. There was also no information about free ticket reservations and the right to its free cancellation within 24 hours.
According to Transport Minister Ray Lahoud, passengers should be able to determine the full cost of transportation without any problems, reserve a ticket for free and cancel the order on the first day. The information on the Aeroflot website was incomplete, which violated consumer rights and did not comply with US law. The US Department of Transportation intends to continue to defend consumer rights and, if they are violated, to impose sanctions on violating airlines.
One could complain about the carelessness and sluggishness of Aeroflot employees, who did not get acquainted with the law adopted in the United States in time and did not change, in accordance with its requirements, the information on their website. Nevertheless, the situation once again shows the snobbery of American officials, who not only dictate their own rules to the whole world, but also oblige the same airlines to closely monitor the changing legislation of the United States. The law was passed in the United States on January 26, while officials from the Ministry of Transport began to follow the information on the Aeroflot website from the same day. The monitoring continued until March 13, when the information on the website was changed and supplemented in accordance with the new rules.
It was for 1, 5 months of the site's operation with information inappropriate to US legislation that Aeroflot received an invoice. Although it was enough a simple email notifying the airline about the introduction of new rules with a request to accordingly change the information presented on the site and a warning about the possibility of penalties if this is not done.
