For years, "Rule 240" has been to airline passengers what Sasquatch is to outdoorsmen: an often-told, little-understood tale that some even doubt exists. But it does exist, and if you know how to use it, it may protect you when your flight is delayed or canceled.
Msnbc.com does a terrific job unraveling an old tale, and in doing so may give protection and power to powerless travelers:
Rule 240 is the paragraph in an airline's contract of carriage -- the
legal agreement between you and the airline -- that describes its
responsibility when a flight is delayed or canceled.
But some "experts" and even some airlines say there is no Rule 240. (Here's the
pro and
con on msnbc.com.) And to an extent they are right, because some airline contracts call that part of their contract something else. But it still exists, whether it is called Rule 240 or Rule 24 or section X.
Airlines must be delighted by all of this bickering over Rule 240,
because the last thing they want you to do is pay attention to the rest
of their contract. Why? Because there are a lot of other rights you
probably never knew about -- everything from when you're entitled to a
refund to what the carrier owes you when you're bumped from a flight.
Airlines, it seems, would rather you not know about what's in their
contract. Some smaller carriers
don’t even publish their contracts online,
meaning you have to ask for a copy of the document at the ticket
counter. (Under federal law, the airline must show it to you.) Even the
major airlines make it difficult to access their contracts by either
forcing you to download the document in PDF format or publishing it in
ALL UPPERCASE, which is the equivalent of yelling online. Bottom line:
going off on a Rule 240 tangent only helps the airlines, not you.
