Pete Buttigieg Is Trying to Fix Air Travel With a ‘Dashboard.’ What’s on It?

On Thursday, the Department of Transportation unveiled its most concrete endeavor yet to fix air travel: an online dashboard featuring 10 U.S. airlines with green check marks next to the services they offer when flights are delayed or canceled for reasons within their control. The website, which is reminiscent of the sort of brand comparison charts offered up by Consumer Reports magazine, reveals, for example, that JetBlue and Hawaiian Airlines will, in some circumstances, rebook passengers on another airline when a flight is canceled, but that Southwest and Alaska will not.

White House and Department of Transportation officials said that the mere idea of an interactive dashboard compelled airlines to make major changes in just two weeks. Ahead of its launch, Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. transportation secretary, sent a letter urging airlines to commit to a number of measures, such as hotel vouchers. He also told them that, along with the proposal he made last month to update federal guidelines on refunds, which he will revisit in November, he was “contemplating” making new rules.

“Today, the Department of Transportation officially launched the dashboard, and we’re proud to report that airlines vastly improved their plans,” said Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, on Thursday.

Given the other sorts of proposals that have been floating around — fining airlines $55,000 per passenger for cancellations caused by staffing; taking the European approach and requiring airlines to pay travelers hundreds of dollars for some canceled flights; and reassigning airline enforcement to state attorneys general — a chart might seem like a small step. Here’s how to understand its impact.

What actually just changed?

Depends whom you ask. According to the White House, the Department of Transportation and some consumer advocates, a lot has changed.

A few weeks ago, none of the major airlines guaranteed that they would cover meals or hotels when they were responsible for cancellations or significant delays, Ms. Jean-Pierre said. Now eight cover hotels and nine cover meals. In a background briefing on Wednesday, senior administration officials said no airline had offered complimentary ground transportation to and from a hotel for passengers stuck overnight. Faced with the dashboard, which unearths airline policies previously hidden in obscure PDFs, seven committed to doing so, they said, and many also altered their policies on rebooking passengers on…