Tangential gripe: I recently flew to SFO for a weekend. In both directions I was significantly delayed due to construction on one of the runways limiting the number of planes that could land per hour.

It doesn’t seem like it ought to have been legal to sell me a ticket claiming departure and arrival times that were extremely unrealistic. United knew the construction was happening, I did not.

I was given the option to refund my ticket but it would have canceled the return flight as well, and last minute flights to SJC instead were prohibitively expensive.

The EU’s policy of forcing airlines to compensate travelers for delays seems like it better incentivizes the airlines to improve service.