Passenger Bill of Rights Gets Renewed Push in New Congress

With a new administration comes new hope - even for the airline industry. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) are pushing forward with the Airline Passengers Bill of Rights, legislation that previously failed.

Providing hope the outcome this time around might be different is the presumptive support of President-Elect Barack Obama. The Illinois senator's home state is also home to Chicago O’Hare (ORD) - one of the busiest airports in the world. Obama co-sponsored a previous passenger right’s initiative and recently, the consumer group FlyersRights.org met with members of Obama’s transportation transition team.

In a prepared statement, FlyersRights.org said, “It is our hope that this bill will give passengers a legal voice when confronted with the horrific ordeal that tens of thousands of passengers have endured when held for many hours on airport tarmacs without food, water, and other essential needs.”

Much of the impetus for the measure came from the Valentine’s Day 2007 meltdown of discount airline JetBlue’s operation at New York Kennedy (JFK). In the wake of the weather-triggered debacle, JetBlue enacted its own, in-house, passenger bill of rights.

The Boxer/Snowe bill calls for:

--Airlines to offer flyers the option of safely deplaning after they’ve been on the ground for three hours after the aircraft’s door has closed
-- Airlines to give passengers food, water, comfortable cabin temperature and ventilation, and adequate restroom facilities when a flight is delayed on the ground;
-- A consumer complaint hotline so flyer can call and alert authorities abut the delay;
-- Airlines and airports to develop contingency plans for delay – plans that must be approved by the Department of Transportation.

It’s important to note that after 2007’s JFK delays, many airports re-vamped their own operational plans to better accommodate delayed passengers. Some carriers also moved to more proactively cancel flights in advance, notifying their customers so they wouldn’t be stick at the airport – or out on the airfield. The latter has helped cut—but not eliminate--the kind of dramatic delays flyers experienced on the tarmac and taxiways of JFK two years ago.

© Cheapflights Ltd Jerry Chandler

Comments

[jacqueline millett]

Please also consider the problems of handicapped travelers. I just returned from a flight on Delta Airlines with my friend who is wheelchair bound in a motorized wheelchair. She was put on the plane with less than sufficient care and they took her wheelchair apart and broke a wire. Also on the return flight they lost her wheelchair in Atlanta and when we arrived in Portland ME sent her home in a regular wheelchair which she could not manage because she has no upper body strength. If it had not been for me having a motorized wheelchair she would not have been able to function. It took 10 days to get her wheelchair back to her because when they did find it they had broken the motor.