Unlike some of my esteemed travel writing colleagues, I won’t make the mistake of confusing a few tarmac delay activists with the entire passenger rights movement. Still, the August airline performance numbers, which have just been released by our friends at the Department of Transportation, merit a closer look.
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Like my step-dad says, “Time to spare? Go by Air.” Boy was he right as tarmac delays, delays in general, poor customer service and a laundry list of other ills have prompted a proposed “Passenger Bill of Rights.” This is not the first time such an effort has been launched in an attempt to legislate what an industry is unwilling to accomplish on its own.
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I have been writing about tarmac delays for a decade now. From the debacle with Northwest Airlines back in 1999 to last week’s Continental Airlines absurdity of keeping a planeload of passengers overnight within feet of a terminal. The airlines have had their chance to fix the problem. Now we need firm legislation.
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Jerry Costello is the co-sponsor of the FAA Reauthorization Bill of 2009, which contains several important new rules designed to help air travelers. I asked the Illinois congressman, who is also the chairman of the House Aviation Subcommittee, about passenger rights and the prospects that new rules would be adopted by the Senate and signed into law.
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Jim Malloway, a New Democrat member of the Canadian Parliament introduced a bill Tuesday that, if passed, would protect airline passengers by providing compensation for those that are experiencing troubles such as denied boarding or canceled flights.
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Many of you have heard the horror story about the AeroMexico flight from Mexico City to Seattle that was forced to divert to Portland, Ore. The passengers reportedly were kept prisoners on that plane for 16 hours because the airport “didn’t have enough customs agents at the airport to process the flight.”
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Another worthless airline passengers’ bill of rights has been introduced in Congress. The bill, called the Air Service Improvement Act of 2008 would require airlines to file contingency plans with the government on how to handle delays and cancellations.
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The latest Air Quality Report shows that overall airline performance is abysmal — some of the worst recorded in the past 18 years. It’s an election year, a good time to let your representatives in Congress know that you’ve had enough. Charlie Leocha gives you a script.
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The innovative passenger rights law passed by New York is preempted by a 1978 U.S. statute that relaxed federal regulation of the airline industry. The federal appeals court ruled that allowing individual states to make laws would create a patchwork of laws that should fall under a nationwide federal rule.
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