Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar told Cheddar on Tuesday that Americans need cash from canceled flights to provide immediate relief, but airline executives have not responded to the call.
In a letter to 11 major airlines, nine Democratic senators, including Klobuchar, wrote "we believe your company has a moral responsibility to provide real refunds, not travel vouchers, to consumers, and to support State Department efforts to repatriate any American citizens trying to come home."
"We're waiting to hear back from them," Sen. Klobuchar said. "Obviously many of them have canceled fees and other things. Or they have proposed to give customers the ability to use it to buy another ticket in the future."
But with Congressional help, those senators think money should go back into the pockets of customers.
Klobuchar said "we think it is much more important to get the cash to the customer knowing that they're going to fly again when this is over" than to provide credits for travelers.
Last week, Congress passed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package that includes $25 billion in cash grants and $25 billion in loans to the airlines.
Her Democratic colleague Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote on Twitter "the airline industry got $25 billion to keep workers on payroll — but they're not the only ones hurting for money right now."
American Airlines said in a response that the "comprehensive travel waivers we've put in place are designed to meet the full range of our customers' needs."
In a clash of fast casual titans, Chipotle Mexican Grill is filing a lawsuit against Sweetgreen for trademark infringement. The salad purveyor recently released a meal offering called "Chipotle Chicken Burrito Bowl," which Chipotle said is being marketed in a "very similar" way as its own products and includes many of the same ingredients.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell this week as the labor market continues to hold up in the face of the Federal Reserve aggressive campaign to cool the economy and bring down inflation.
Wall Street is drifting amid mixed trading Thursday, threatening to send the S&P 500 to its first losing week in the last four following some discouraging reports on the economy.
The upcoming trial in a voting machine company’s defamation lawsuit against Fox News for airing false allegations of vote fraud in the 2020 presidential election will not include testimony about the Jan. 6 uprising at the U.S. Capitol, a judge ruled Wednesday.
Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst with Bankrate.com, joined Cheddar News to provide guidance on how to raise your credit score, especially for would-be homebuyers.
Chipotle filed a lawsuit in California federal court against Sweetgreen over the salad chain's chicken burrito bowl, claiming infringement for using the word "chipotle" in the name.
