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Congress Wary of Airline Promises

House Committee Studies Passenger Bill of Rights

By Joseph S. Enoch
ConsumerAffairs.com Congressional Correspondent

April 21, 2007
Kate Hanni was one of thousands of passengers stranded for nearly nine hours in an American Airlines jet on a stormy tarmac in Austin, Texas last December. 

Kate Hanni

"During those nine intolerable hours, we ran out of water, toilets overflowed and we were only given a 45-calorie bag of pretzels, which I gave to my son," Hanni said. 

"As time ticked by slowly, passengers started to get frustrated, angry, and feel helpless. We were left with no information on how long we would be held on the plane. 

"Because of the lack of care and service, a mother made diapers out of T-shirts for her baby," Hanni continued. "On another aircraft, police arrested brawling people. … A small dog defecated on passengers, who began vomiting and were told to hold their own vomit bags due to full trash receptacles. 

"People ran out of medications and others had no water with which to take theirs." 

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Rather than issue refunds and cancel the flight, American Airlines held the passengers hostage in the cabins before finally giving in to the pleas of those in need of medical attention. Hanni's flight was one of 66,868 that held passengers for more than an hour last year. 

Incidents such as hers and that of the Jet Blue cancellations at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York  caught the eye of the national media and now Congress seems poised to take action. 

Not Convinced

The bipartisan Aviation Subcommittee did not seem convinced by the aviation industry's promise to regulate itself - the same promise they made to the same subcommittee in 1999, after a snow storm in Detroit stranded 50 Northwest Airlines flights on the tarmac. 

Fifteen of those flights experienced delays longer than eight hours. 

The Airport Transport Association (ATA), an airline trade group, convinced the then-Republican controlled Congress to let the ATA regulate the industry. 

But data provided by Department of Transportation's inspector general, Calvin Scovel, at today's hearing indicated that delays have generally increased across the board. 

"They have made unprecedented changes to their operations to regain profitability," Scovel noted in a written statement. 

"If we don't exercise oversight they're going to keep taking advantage of passengers," Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee said. "Unless the industry addresses this and addresses it now, there is going to be regulation." 

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said the ATA is hardly suited to regulate the industry because its top priority is maintaining members and making them happy. 

Chart supplied by Kate Hanni

Representatives and Senators have written a handful of laws that address the issue, but today's lengthy proceedings were the first of a series that hope to discover the balance between consumer protection and declogging an already backlogged airport transportation infrastructure. 

Airlines Oppose Legislation

The leading bill is the bipartisan Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act which has been introduced in both the House and the Senate. The bill provides airline passengers with new rights to potable food and water and sanitary facilities and a right to deplane when they are stranded on tarmacs for more than three hours at a time. 

James May, president and chief executive officer of the Air Transport Association said that any right for passengers to deplane will backlog the system more than it already is. May argued that any aircraft that has to return to the gate to drop off disgruntled passengers will lose its place in line for the runway and will also tangle traffic as it attempts to weave through other aircraft on the tarmac. 

Sally Greenburg, senior product safety counsel for Consumers Union, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, said despite May's comments, the proposed legislation is needed to protect consumers. 

"We believe the Passenger Bill of Rights is a measured response to the recent ill treatment of airline passengers and will help to restore the basic rights and protections that are sorely absent today," Greenburg said. 

Representatives did commend Jet Blue for voluntarily implementing its own Customer Bill of Rights which incrementally gives vouchers or cash refunds for consumers left stranded in the airport or on the tarmac. 

But Oberstar did not seem convinced that Jet Blue is an accurate representation of the entire industry. 

"I appreciate the action Jet Blue took," Oberstar said. "But the other airlines have not made any changes to address these problems." 

Jet Blue's chief executive officer and president, David Neeleman, told ConsumerAffairs.com he was against any regulation, even if it was identical to the airline's current Customer Bill of Rights. 

"There's too much regulation as it is," he said. 

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