The US Department of Transportation has a number of regulations designed to help airline customers, or at least to ensure that their rights are protected. Examples of these laws include those about customers with disabilities, situations where airlines have oversold flights, lost luggage and Congress is now wrestling with a “Passengers Bill of Rights.”
As with most things put into law regulations often fall short of their intended mission. Once written out in black and white, rules can remove any sort of wiggle room for compassion and human decision-making. Written regulations allow folks who don’t want to take responsibility for enforcing the spirit of the law to avoid making hard decisions and simply follow the rules. Published rules have their consequences for both the enforcer and those whom they are written to protect.
Recently, I wrote about Allegiant Air’s refusal to transport Dennis Hill on a flight from Bangor, Maine to Orlando because of the airline’s concern about his health. After enduring a grueling drive home to Florida, he died in a hospital, rather than at home, as had been his final wish.
That article discussed the regulatory reasons why it was acceptable for Allegiant to deny Hill passage to Florida under the stipulations set forth in 14 CFR Part 382, the implementing regulation of the Air Carrier Access Act.
The long title of Part 382 is “Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 382: Nondiscrimination on the basis of disability in air travel.” In other words, the regulation is intended to protect the rights of this segment of the traveling public. Being sick does not necessarily equal being disabled, but in this case, the regulation disagrees. If the airline treats the customer as if he or she has a physical or mental impairment, then the stipulations outlined in that law apply to him or her.
Since my first article on this subject was published, I’ve received quite a few reader comments, including several from the family of the late Mr. Hill. Enough so that I’m moved to turn the coin over and look at this issue not from the airline and regulatory perspective, but from the viewpoint of the individual human beings whose lives and feelings those regulations impact.
Left on their own, I have to believe most people would have done the right thing for Mr. Hill. Unfortunately, in this case, the same regulation designed to protect the rights of customers with disabilities and make their lives better actually ended up making Mr. Hill’s final hours worse. Here’s why:
Part 382 contains a section entitled “Refusal of Transportation” that outlines when an airline can or cannot deny someone boarding because of his or her disability. The applicable section reads:
Carrier personnel may refuse to provide transportation to any passenger on the basis of safety, and may refuse to provide transportation to any passenger whose carriage would violate the Federal Aviation Regulations. In exercising this authority, carrier personnel shall not discriminate against any qualified individual with a disability on the basis of disability and their actions shall not be inconsistent with the provisions of this Part.
That little phrase on the basis of safety is just enough to give airline company lawyers the traction they need to write procedures to direct their personnel to do what Allegiant’s employees did to Mr. Hill. The government has placed so little definition around the phrase on the basis of safety that it has left things wide open for interpretation, and the lawyers have seized that opportunity to wiggle their airline out of the responsibility for honoring those in need, like Mr. Hill.
At my former employer, we were instructed to use the assertion that if the customer required immediate medical attention during the early phases of flight, an “overweight landing” would be required — the aircraft would not have burned off enough fuel to be below its prescribed maximum landing weight, constituting a safety issue, necessitating specialized procedures for landing the aircraft and frequently requiring a special structural maintenance inspection (In the case of that last link, the airworthiness directive from Airbus includes the not-so-comforting words “crack propagation … could affect the structural integrity of the wing.” Yikes.)
That assertion was the loophole we needed to deny someone transportation under the guidelines set forth in the regulation. So, as you see, the same regulation that was supposed to help the customer ended up hurting them in the end.
But really, what were the odds, in a three-hour flight from Bangor to Orlando, that Mr. Hill would have needed immediate medical attention during the time that the aircraft had not burned off enough fuel to get below its maximum landing weight? No one will ever know that answer — not the Medlink doctor who spoke with the crew, not Mr. Hill or his family, not the captain, no one. My guess — the odds were pretty slim.
I know Allegiant’s main concern was that it did not want to divert its flight to an en route airport. It’s expensive to use that extra fuel, to pay an additional landing fee at some airport somewhere and to pay the crew additional duty time. Period.
I also know, to a lesser degree, Allegiant did not want to inconvenience the other customers onboard who were traveling to Orlando to see Mickey Mouse. But do we think mankind is so insensitive that it would want Allegiant to deny a dying man a trip home so they could be on time for a ride on Space Mountain? Based on the venomous comments I’ve read that were directed at the airline, it seems hope for man’s concern for one another is not altogether lost.
In Man Was Made to Mourn: A Dirge, Scottish National Poet Robert Burns discusses “man’s inhumanity to man” — the way we mistreat one another. Here’s an excerpt:
A few seem favourites of fate,
In pleasure’s lap carest;
Yet, think not all the rich and great
Are likewise truly blest:
But oh! what crowds in ev’ry land,
All wretched and forlorn,
Thro’ weary life this lesson learn,
That man was made to mourn.“Many and sharp the num’rous ills
inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves,
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And man, whose heav’n-erected face
The smiles of love adorn, –
Man’s inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
Maybe the airlines and the government should study a little poetry when considering how they treat customers in need.
Another example of regulation intended to help customers, but that actually ends up slighting many, is the European Union’s Regulation 261/2004 — their version of the “Passengers Bill of Rights” that our own Congress runs hot and cold on attempting to pass, depending on whether a long on-board delay has made the news lately.
During my years in customer relations, it was routine to provide an upset customer who complained of a one or two hour delay with a travel voucher to be used toward the purchase of a future flight — a common practice in any industry, really. It’s an art form. Arriving at a compensation amount is a dance, a game of sorts with the customer. Is he a very frequent flier? Is he passive or assertive? How much did he pay for his ticket? How egregious was his problem? He’ll want the moon and I’ll want to start low so I can bargain up to the amount I’m really willing to give him. We’ll eventually agree on something somewhere in the middle.
But by placing flight mileage, time-parameters and dollar amounts on how and when an airline must compensate a customer, the European Union actually caused my airline to clamp down on the times it offered compensation. “I’m sorry, Mr. Smith, the European Union is very specific regarding the things that should be done to assist customers whose flights are delayed. I’m sorry for the difficulty you experienced, but we must respectfully decline your request for compensation.”
All travelers should think long and hard about whether they want members of Congress legislating what airlines should and shouldn’t do for them. Once it’s written into law, if it ever passes, you’ll likely be in for a rude awakening when your particular problem falls just outside the parameters set forth in a so-called “Bill of Rights.” Ask your friends in Europe.
Customer service problems vary from person to person and situation to situation. They are gray. Trying to pigeonhole them with specific black-and-white laws and regulations is like trying to put that proverbial square peg into that round hole.
