Support Grows For Air Passenger Rights

The airlines are losing  allies in the fight against passenger rights legislation. Could that be because they have a pattern of screwing up, promising to stop screwing up and then screwing up again?

Yes, I think that could be it. And so does Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, which just switched sides and now favors the legislation.

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Holy Crap! Not Again With The Stranded Passengers

Last Friday, less than two weeks after the debacle with a commuter jet held on the ground overnight with 47 passengers on board in Minnesota, something quite similar happened at JFK.

Not many people noticed (except the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Arthur Frommer) that 154 passengers were trapped on a Sun Country jet for about six hours at JFK. As the Star Tribune reported:

Once they got off, the passengers complained not only about the delay, but also that they had had to buy their food and water from the airline, and that, even so, provisions quickly ran out.

In response, Sun Country announced a new policy under which it says it will let passengers off a plane after four hours and will stop charging for food after three hours.

Not even close to good enough. We need a law.

Blame Shifting In Tarmac Stranding

The pilot of the ExpressJet plane that sat overnight on the tarmac at the Rochester, Minn., airport on Aug. 8 tried repeatedly to get permission to let her 47 passengers off the plane, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood writes in his blog.

A DOT investigation shows that a Mesaba Airlines representative improperly refused to let the jet into a gate, LaHood wrote, and the DOT’s Aviation Enforcement Office is now “considering appropriate action to take against Mesaba.”

LaHood also noted that “more senior personnel” at ExpressJet and Continental should have gotten involved to resolve the situation. ExpressJet was operating the flight for Continental.

That’s right. When human beings are sealed in a cramped metal tube and held against their will for hours, it’s a crisis and should be treated as one.

That’s why we must pass an Air Passenger Bill of Rights.

NY Times: Free Air Passengers

A New York Times editorial on Friday called for passage of the Air Passenger Bill of Rights (the Senate version) on the grounds that it is not cool to hold people hostage in a metal tube parked on the tarmac with an overflowing toilet, no food and screaming babies. I paraphrase, of course.

Outrage Grows Over Tarmac Delays

Another blogger has weighed in on the outrageous case of the ExpressJet flight that sat on the ground overnight at the Rochester, Minn., airport because nobody could be bothered to get 47 passengers off the cramped regional jet. And that blogger is Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

This case is shaping up to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. I believe we will end up with an air passenger rights law out of this one, and it’s about damned time. As Arthur Frommer recently blogged, it’s time to tell the airlines “that passengers have the right to get the hell off the plane.”

It might happen, once in a while, that somebody gets trapped in an elevator or a train or a bus. That’s what we call an accident. But in the airline industry, it’s no accident. It’s a recurring symptom of a systemic problem that the airlines are unable or unwilling to solve on their own.

Not all airlines are equally at fault. Check out this chart from USA Today, which shows the frequency of tarmac delays of at least three hours, by airline. And keep it in mind next time you book a flight.

Excuses For Mistreating Passengers Aren’t Holding Up

It now seems as if the reason 47 people were forced to sit overnight in a cramped regional jet parked at the Rochester, Minn., airport was simply that nobody cared enough to get them off. The airport now says Continental, which sold tickets for the ExpressJet flight, could have brought the jet to a gate and offloaded the passengers, Joe Sharkey of the New York Times reports. ExpressJet says it’s sorry, which it ought to be. Enough already. Time to pass the Air Passenger Bill of Rights.

Passengers Held In Another Nightmare On The Tarmac

There was another outrageous case over the weekend of passengers being held on a commercial aircraft on the ground, as the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

Forty-seven passengers were kept aboard a small, regional jet for a total of nine hours, seven on the ground. The ExpressJet flight, being operated for Continental Airlines, took off from Houston for Minneapolis and diverted to Rochester, Minn., because of weather.

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Senate Committee Boosts Passenger Rights Provision

Airlines would have to let passengers off planes that are delayed for three hours after pushing back from the gate, according to a provision in the Federal Aviation Administration funding bill passed today by the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Bloomberg reports.

Pilots would be permitted to add 30 minutes at their discretion and exceptions could be made for safety concerns.

The airline industry is still opposed, of course. “There’s virtually nothing good in the three-hour rule,” David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association in Washington, said in an interview.

I beg to differ. What’s good about the rule is that it respects the basic human rights of airline passengers. If that’s inconvenient for the airlines, tough. Work it out.

This fight is not over. The bill now goes to the full Senate, and then there may be a conflict with the House over several provisions, including tougher regulation of airline alliances, Aviation Week reports. That provision is backed by Rep. James Oberstar, the powerful chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

On The Ordeal Of AeroMexico Flight 670

In the spirit of better late than never, I’d like to comment on the ordeal suffered by passengers aboard AeroMexico Flight 670 from Mexico City to Seattle on Jan. 20.

The flight was diverted to Portland because it was too foggy to land in Seattle. After the six-hour flight, the passengers and crew had to sit on the ground for four hours and then fly back to Mexico City because there were no customs agents available to process them in Portland.

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Drama Over Heathrow Runway Continues

Britain’s Labor government has announced it will go ahead with plans to add a third runway to London’s Heathrow airport, despite opposition from residents, environmentalists, the Conservative party and a whole lot of other people, the New York Times reports.

The announcement so enraged one member of parliament that he picked up the ceremonial mace and put it on the Labour frontbench, according to the Times of London. This is apparently not allowed because the MP was suspended from the House of Commons for five days. Just for moving the … thingy.

Near as I can make out, the mace is a really fancy stick. Not only does Britain have a mace, but most former colonies have them — including the United States. (Interesting note: we had to replace our mace after the British burned the Capitol in 1814. Those redcoats owe us a mace.)

I’m thinking this mace could come in handy. If Congress fails again to pass an airline passenger bill of rights, let’s get that mace and put it somewhere.