Airlines say they're capping fares in the hurricane's path as Biden warns against price gouging
President Joe Biden is warning airlines and other companies not to overcharge people who are trying to get out of the path of Hurricane Milton
A few airports in Florida began closing and airlines canceled hundreds of flights on Tuesday ahead of Hurricane Milton's arrival. Government officials from President Joe Biden on down warned companies not to overcharge people fleeing the storm's path.
“I’m calling on the airlines and other companies to provide as much service as possible to accommodate evacuations, and not to engage in price gouging — to just do it on the level," Biden said after a hurricane briefing.
Airlines defended their actions, some saying they had imposed fare caps in the last couple days.
By midafternoon Tuesday on the East Coast, airlines had canceled more than 700 U.S. flights, compared with fewer than 200 cancellations on Monday and fewer than 100 each of the two previous days, according to the FlightAware tracking service.
About half of Tuesday's cancellations were at Tampa International Airport, which shut down in the morning as Milton approached.
Travelers packed the airport on Monday, hoping to catch one of the remaining flights out of the storm's predicted path. Cerina McQuillan was trying to get her 17-year-old daughter on a flight to New York.
McQuillan said that when she first tried to buy a one-way ticket, prices were around $200. Then the airline's site crashed.
“All of a sudden it went back on again, and the flights quadrupled in price. It went up to like $750 within a matter of seconds,” she said. «There were prices even as high as $1,000 for one leg. So wrong! So wrong!”
Jeremy Bingaman, a music-industry podcaster, posted a screenshot of United Airlines fares for flights out of Tampa to
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