WASHINGTON, April 4 (Reuters) - U.S. Transportation

Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Thursday urged the nation's largest

passenger airlines to improve travel benefits for active-duty

military personnel and their families.

The department in May plans to begin posting comparative

information on travel benefits that airlines guarantee for

service members and their families on a customer service

dashboard.

USDOT plans to detail airlines that will commit to full

refunds to service members and their families who cancel travel

plans due to military directives as well as allowances for free

baggage.

Most carriers give military personnel additional free bags

and other benefits like priority boarding or discounted fares.

There are about 1.3 million active-duty U.S. military personnel

and around 800,000 reservists.

Buttigieg said "benefits are not consistently detailed in

carriers' public-facing Customer Service Plans, resulting in

many service members being unaware of them" and added that

"airlines' travel benefits often do not fully address the needs

of service members who may need to cancel or change personal

travel plans due to military directives."

Major carriers including American Airlines ( AAL ), Delta

Air Lines ( DAL ) and United Airlines referred questions

to trade group Airlines for America, which praised military

members and said "carriers are proud to offer a variety of

travel benefits and are transparent about these benefits on

their websites."

Southwest Airlines ( LUV ) said it is "committed to making

the military travel experience as easy as possible" and offers a

number of benefits.

The Transportation Department previously posted a

government dashboard highlighting airline commitments to not

charge families to sit together. In September 2022, nearly all

major airlines agreed to guarantee passengers meals and

overnight stays for lengthy delays within their control after

USDOT first announced a dashboard comparing customer

protections.

In May 2023, President Joe Biden said USDOT is writing new

rules seeking to require airlines to compensate passengers with

cash for significant flight delays or cancellations when the

carriers are responsible.

USDOT has not released a formal proposal or specified how

much cash it aims to require airlines to pay passengers for

significant delays. But it asked carriers in 2022 whether they

would agree to pay at least $100 for delays of at least three

hours caused by airlines.