"Weekend air delays prompt new calls for passengers rights bill"

Monday, March 19, 2007

Weekend air delays prompt calls for passengers rights bill
BY JAMES BERNSTEIN
Newsday (NY)


New incidents of passengers being trapped on grounded airliners at airports
on the East Coast over the weekend are likely to provide fuel to advocates
of proposed federal legislation mandating that airlines allow travelers to
de-plane after three hours of sitting on the tarmac, aviation experts said
yesterday.

Over the weekend, USAirways canceled over 2,000 flights at Kennedy and
LaGuardia airports and elsewhere on the East Coast, when a snow and ice
storm barreled through the area beginning Friday afternoon.

Passengers were stuck aboard a Royal Air Maroc plane for nearly 14 hours at
Kennedy between Saturday night and Sunday. Virgin Atlantic kept passengers
on a flight to London, from Kennedy, from 9:45 PM Friday until sometime
after 4 AM Saturday, when the flight was finally cancelled. JetBlue Airways
Corp. of Forest Hills, managed to avoid most delays and cancellations it
experienced Valentine's Day by canceling hundreds of flights before the
storm hit Friday

"I am certain this (the airlines latest troubles) is going to help us," Kate
Hanni, of Napa Valley, Calif. said in a phone interview yesterday. Hanni is
an organizer of the Coalition for Airlines Passengers Bill of Rights, which
asks that passengers be allowed to de-plane after sitting on a grounded
plane for three hours and that trapped passengers be provided with fresh
water, food and working toilets.

A bill has been introduced in the House and Senate calling for such
requirements, and a hearing on the measure is scheduled for sometime in
April.

In a statement yesterday, the coalition called on congress to make
passengers rights a part of the Federal Aviation Administration's
authorization bill for funding in the next fiscal year.

"The incidents this weekend... once again prove that the airlines are
unwilling and unable to police themselves and that the last thing they need
is to be rewarded by another tax break and less accountability to consumers
and congress," the coalition said.

Darrell Jenkins, a veteran airline expert and aviation professor at Ohio
State University, agreed that the weekend incidents have given momentum to
those advocating for passengers' rights.

"Everytime something like this happens, it adds fuel to the fire," Jenkins
said. "I think one way or another, things are going to change" at the
airlines.

The Air Transport Association, which represents the major carriers, opposes
any such legislation, saying decisions about de-planing should be left
solely to the air crew.

Robert W. Mann Jr., an independent airline analyst and consultant in Port
Washington, said airlines and airports would face the major problem of how
to take people safely off a grounded airplane. If a plane sitting on the
tarmac leaves its position to return to the gate, it loses its spot for a
takeoff. Buses might be used but, Mann said, there is always a danger of
bringing vehicles onto active taxiways.

"Here the (airline) industry is between the rock and the hard place," Mann
said. "I don't think anybody intends" to keep people on an airplane for
hours.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif) and Olympia Snowe (R-Me)., proposed the
"Airlines Passenger Bill of Rights Act of 2007" in February, almost
immediately after the JetBlue meltdown. Jim Berard, a spokesman for the
House aviation subcommittee, said the legislation has been referred to the
committee, but no action has yet been taken on it.

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