Senate Considers Airline Passengers' Rights

April 12, 2007
Boxer to May: "We've put together something that you should embrace, it seems to me, and work with us on instead of fighting with us."

The way Kate Hanni tells it, an ill-fated holiday trip that left her family stuck inside a grounded airliner for nine hours without food, running water or working toilets amounted to "cruel and inhumane" treatment that no passenger should have to endure.

Infuriated about the ordeal in December, she and her husband started a coalition of fed-up fliers to press for an industrywide passenger bill of rights. Earlier this year, after JetBlue's cancellations of hundreds of flights stranded thousands of passengers across the country, their cause caught the attention of legislators on Capitol Hill.

On Wednesday, the Napa resident appeared before a Senate panel to lend support to a bill by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) that would create a federally mandated set of rights to supplement the airlines' voluntary guidelines.

"This winter's events make clear that the airlines have failed to live up to their promises and it is time to literally lay down the law," Boxer said at the first hearing on the bill by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

The measure would allow passengers to get off an aircraft after three hours on the ground unless the pilot believed the plane would soon be cleared to depart or if letting passengers off would compromise safety.

The bill would also require airlines to provide food, drinking water and adequate restroom facilities.

The legislation's sponsors say the requirements are "a modest approach" that will impose little hardship on airlines, which are still recovering from the downturn in air travel after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"The time has come to at least demand a reasonably based position," Snowe said. "People make a significant investment ... in purchasing a ticket, not to mention the cascade effect that [a delay] has -- whether it's their vacation plans or it could be a family emergency, whatever the case may be. And I think there's no accountability."

Rep. Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) has introduced similar legislation in the House.

Calvin L. Scovel III, the Transportation Department's inspector general, stopped short of endorsing a legislated passenger bill of rights but did tell legislators that airlines need to do more to improve customer service.

A 2006 audit by his office found that only five of the 12 airlines that signed a voluntary 1999 customer service commitment had systems in place to meet their promises -- including seeing to passengers' essential needs during long delays.

Airlines oppose mandated customer service requirements. James C. May, the president and chief executive officer of the Air Transport Assn. of America, a trade group representing major airlines, pointed out that hours-long delays are relatively rare and warned that the proposed legislation could actually lead to further delays and cancellations.

He said market forces, not Congress, ought to dictate how they treat their passengers.

"Following safety, on-time service is the most important factor for success in the airline business," he testified. "The reputations that the airlines earn for good service is the currency they have to offer in the marketplace."

But Boxer disputed that argument, calling May's testimony "incredulous" and "arrogant."

"We've put together something that you should embrace, it seems to me, and work with us on instead of fighting with us," she said angrily. "You are dealing with real lives here.... These are human beings being treated in the worst possible way."

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