What does an airline owe you when it delays or cancels your flight?

If your answer is “I don’t know,” there’s good news coming. The U.S. Department of Transportation recently announced plans to create an online dashboard of airline policies, outlining exactly what each carrier promises their passengers when things go wrong.

And things have gone colossally wrong this summer.

The dashboard is one federal response to the chaos of this summer’s travel season, which has seen a spike in flight delays and cancellations, largely attributed to ongoing airline staffing shortages. On Monday alone, there were nearly 1,500 flight cancellations into and out of the United States, plus another 8,500 delays, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.com.

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Long-time consumer travel advocate William McGee said the dashboard isn’t nearly enough.

Instead of merely reporting what airlines are doing – or not doing – the DOT could force them to do more, he said.

“It’s nice gift wrapping,” said McGee, senior fellow for aviation at the American Economic Liberties Project, a nonprofit that advocates against corporate monopolies. “The gift underneath is not worth much.”

He added, “The dashboard is not providing a new set of rights. What it’s doing is assembling all of this really terrible information and putting it in one place, and putting a ribbon on it.”

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McGee, however, said the department should be doing much more than asking and urging.

“Rather than urging, how about demanding?” he said.

He’s hopeful that the new DOT dashboard may, at a minimum, motivate travelers to press their leaders for more.

This summer’s travel woes may finally prompt Congress to act on a series reforms, sometimes referred to as a passengers bill of rights, he said. It would set rules for airlines operating in the U.S., requiring minimum compensation for delayed or cancelled flights, lost bags and other travel mishaps.

“I think this summer is a game changer,” he said. “I really hope something good can come out of this.”