by Donald Wood
Last updated: 12:30 PM ET, Thu June 15, 2017
After a string of highly-publicized incidents involving airline passengers being mistreated, complaints against airlines in the United States skyrocketed by 70 percent.
According to Reuters, the U.S. Department of Transportation revealed the number of complaints against airlines in America climbed to 1,909 during April.
Another reason behind passenger frustration is that airlines canceled 1.6 percent of scheduled domestic flights during the month-an increase from the 0.9 percent in the same month last year, according to the Transportation Department.
The recent series of high-profile incidents aboard flights in the United States have been shared on social media and created a negative buzz around the industry. The impact of the incidents has been felt all the way to Washington D.C., where congressional hearings with airline executives have been held to address the concerns about airplane passenger rights.
"If airlines don't get their act together, we are going to act, it is going to be one size fits all," House of Representatives transportation committee chairman Bill Shuster said in May. "Seize this opportunity because if you don't, we're going to come, and you're not going to like it."
[READMORE] READ MORE: Shocking Video Shows United Employee Abusing Elderly Passenger[/READMORE]
Last week, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao spoke to Congress and said her department created a new website to highlight passenger protections. While Chao has not endorsed any new legal protections for airline passengers, she did tell members of Congress that it's in the airlines' best interest to "treat passengers with respect."
Since April, several airlines have already started making fundamental changes to their passenger policies: Southwest Airlines revealed that it would no longer be overbooking flights while United announced policy changes that included increasing compensation for overbooked passengers to as much as $10,000.
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