Passenger Communication and Rebooking Record

PROBLEM: More than 1.5 million passengers were scheduled to depart on roughly 11,000 flights after 4 p.m. ET on Nov 13 — and they learned about the ground stop wherever they happened to be: at gates, in lines, on phones. A passenger-communication record that does not exist means nobody can say what passengers were told, when, and what rebooking they were offered — and the next mass disruption tells passengers the same thing in the same scattered way.

SOLUTION: A passenger communication and rebooking record: every mass-disruption notice logged with its message, its channel, its time, and the rebooking options it offered — free changes, refunds, alternate transport — so the communication to 1.5 million people becomes a record that can be audited instead of a memory of a bad evening.

EVIDENCE BASIS: DOCUMENTED — More than 1.5 million passengers were scheduled to depart U.S. airports on roughly 11,000 flights after 4 p.m. ET, shortly after the ground stop began (Cirium via Reuters). More than 25,000 U.S. flights had been delayed as of 9:30 p.m. ET (FlightAware via USA Today). Delta allowed customers to change flights at no extra cost. (USA Today.)