Sen. Dick Durbin on Thursday had a particularly interesting way to complain about airlines pushing credit cards and other branded products.
“It's almost like the farmhand force-feeding a goose on his road to foie gras, the information that is jammed on you,” he said.
The Democratic senator from Illinois had been questioning federal Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing about airline practices.
“After you're in your seat, and have your belt fastened, and you're underway, there's an announcement that usually comes around in most airplanes, not about just critical safety issues but incredible credit card and frequent flyer opportunities,” Durbin said. “Then, the flight attendants walk up and down the aisles and pass out these cards for applications for their branded credit cards, they stand at the door as you leave the aircraft — it's a heavy sell. It's a hard sell.”
“You ask yourself: Why? Why are they spending so much time doing it? I think you know the answer. Because major airlines make more money off their branded credit cards in your pocket than they do off their aviation operations,” Durbin continued. “It turns out those big airlines are actually credit card companies that happen to own a few airplanes.”
For his part, Buttigieg acknowledged that the business lines between banking, credit card, and airplane companies have blurred, but said his department shares Durbin’s and Americans’ concerns and launched a review of U.S. airline companies’ rewards programs “to determine if there are any unfair and deceptive practices.”
