Travel&Vacation

AskEd & AnswerEd

Some self-styled “consumer” websites and books still urge you to invoke “Rule 240″ when your flight is delayed—to demand your original airline transfer you to another line that can get you to your destination more quickly. Sadly, much of what you see about Rule 240 these days is seriously out of date, and some of it was never correct in the first place. No wonder travelers can be confused.

For example, a reader recently asked: “I just got this information about Rule 240 from an online source: ‘If flight troubles are due to mechanical difficulties or airline incompetence, and another airline can get you to your destination sooner, the original airline is obligated to transfer you.’ Before I start waving the rules around at the airport, I wanted to know if they are even still in use.”

The short answer: They’re still in use, sort of, but neither universally nor uniformly. A few airlines still operate under the original Rule 240 formula, but with modifications; others formerly did but no longer do, and still others never did.

How it started

In its original incarnation, the Rule 240 formula committed an airline facing a delayed flight to transfer you to another carrier if (1) the second airline could get you to your destination more quickly than the original line and (2) it had available seats. In pre-deregulation days, all the big U.S. airlines adhered to this practice.

Even then, though, travelers faced some confusion over Rule 240, starting with the fact that it was never a government-imposed “rule,” as we generally interpret that straightforward word. Instead, the U.S. government required all airlines to submit tariffs containing fares, fare conditions, baggage rules, and details about what they would and would not do in a wide range of circumstances. Those tariffs, in effect, constituted the contract between airlines and travelers.

In the then-standardized format, tariff paragraphs were often called “rules,” and paragraph 240 of every line’s tariff dealt with the airline’s responsibilities in the event of delay or cancellation. All big scheduled airlines had interline agreements, so they all, uniformly, agreed to transfer a delayed traveler to another line provided the second line could get the traveler to his/her destination sooner. Airline agents or on-the-site supervisors could easily “endorse” ticket coupons from their line over to another. If an airline agent didn’t volunteer such a switch during a delay, we travel writers urged travelers to insist on a “Rule 240″ transfer.

No more standard “rule”

In today’s deregulated marketplace, airlines are no longer required to file standard domestic tariffs. Instead, the boilerplate that used to be in the tariff is now contained in a “contract of carriage.” That document actually forms the basis of the legal contract between airline and passenger. It covers much of the stuff that was formerly in tariffs, including how airlines handle delays (as well as lost baggage, shipment of pets, and other details). Some current contracts of carriage pretty much mimic the original tariffs, while others are completely new documents, in new formats and with new language.