PASSENGER complaints about poor airline service, including overbooking, excessive delays and insufficient compensation for passengers’ inconvenience, became the hot topic this week with inquiries being staged in both the House and the Senate. To be absolutely clear, poor public service is not acceptable and should not be ignored. But correcting it requires a more thorough understanding of the problem in order to develop a solution that actually works.

The nation’s largest air carrier, Cebu Pacific, has been at the center of the controversy. According to information that emerged in the last week in hearings in the House, there have been more than 3,000 passenger complaints against the airline in recent months, most involving passengers who were involuntarily prevented from flying due to overbooking. The airline itself admitted that its on-time percentage has dropped to a dismal 58 percent; for comparison, the worst airline for on-time performance in the United States in 2022, Allegiant Air, had a percentage of 63.9.