U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg attends a Cabinet meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, DC on September 20, 2024.
Samuel Corum | AFP | Getty Images
The Department of Transportation said Tuesday it is in contact with airlines about the affordability of their flights to areas affected by Hurricane Helene and those preparing for Hurricane Milton, as concerns about rising fares grow.
“DOT officials have been in contact with airlines to obtain more information about the capacity and affordability of flights to the affected areas,” DOT a spokesperson told CNBC in a statement.
Alarms about rising prices are typically louder during disasters like hurricanes, when demand increases from consumers looking for items like last-minute flights and survival supplies.
Price gouging is the practice of retailers artificially inflating prices dramatically when the retailer’s costs have not increased. In times of crisis, when urgent demand far exceeds supply, consumers can be particularly vulnerable to price gouging.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a Monday post on social media platform X that his agency is “closely monitoring flights in and out of the areas affected by Hurricane Milton to make sure airlines are not charging excessively inflated fares.”
“The Ministry takes seriously all allegations of jettisoning by airlines,” he added.
Florida is bracing for Hurricane Milton to make landfall on its west coast on Wednesday, deepening the wounds left by the devastation of Hurricane Helene, which ravaged the southeastern US about a week earlier.
In areas where Milton is expected to have the worst impact, local officials urged residents — and in some cases ordered them — to evacuate.
Flights in and out Tampa International Airport have been suspended since Tuesday morning. The near one Orlando International Airport plans to adjourn at 8 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
American Airlines and United Airlines have added flights to help get people out of the area. American also said it protectively limited fares on flights to some Florida airports.
But demand for airline tickets and other goods has soared and some prices have soared, exacerbating concerns that companies could take advantage of consumers in a time of crisis.
The Florida Attorney General’s Office on Saturday expanded the state’s “price gouging hotline,” offering consumers a way to file complaints as the state prepares for Milton.
The attorney general’s office has received more than 450 contacts from consumers alleging Helene-related prices, “mainly related to fuel,” a spokesperson told CNBC. The office has received more than 200 contacts related to Milton, mostly for fuel and water.
Although price panics are normal during natural disasters, only the term “price spike” has political implications, less than a month before a presidential election that is extremely close.
Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris has proposed a federal ban on grocery price gouging as part of her campaign economic platform, though she has acknowledged that most companies do not artificially inflate prices.
“These storms and these hurricanes,” Harris said in an interview Tuesday on “The Howard Stern Show.” “When people are desperate in emergencies, some bad actors will raise prices. We have to go after them.”
— CNBC’s Leslie Josephs contributed to this report.