Biden Proposal Would Make Airlines Pay Travelers For Mechanical Delays

[SomewhereInTheMiddle]

2. Not saying it would happen, but ...

... I could easily imagine a maintenance crew chief telling his crew that a mechanical problem is not serious enough to warrant the ($200 x 300 passengers) $60,000 a twenty-minute delay to double check a fuel line or replace a landing gear lug nut would cost the airline. Or worse an airline exec making that same decision with no clue what mechanical problems might actually be important.

Might this lead to airlines overlooking problems to avoid payouts for delays? Might that cause potentially unsafe conditions to be ignored?

I imagine the idea is to incentivize airlines to plan and schedule enough time to do maintenance before the passengers are involved. But that also costs money.

If this goes through it will be interesting to see the results.