"Passengers demand satisfaction after recent airline meltdowns"

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Passengers demand satisfaction after recent airline meltdowns 
By Paul Beebe
The Salt Lake (UT) Tribune


It's a nightmare plot as awful as "Snakes on a Plane." An airliner loaded
with passengers is stranded on the tarmac for hours. Temperatures rise
inside the airless jet. Toilets overflow. Food and water run out. The crew
says or does little to defuse the mounting anger. 

But this horror scene wasn't made in Hollywood. Starting in December, when
an American Airlines plane was diverted to Austin, Texas, because of heavy
storms in Dallas, a string of similar incidents has played out at some of
the nation's largest airports, angering a widening group of travelers from
coast to coast who are pushing Congress to enact the nation's first airline
passenger bill of rights. 

They point to statistics that show that hours spent in planes on the tarmac,
the amount of lost baggage and the number of late arrivals are on the
upswing, even as projections for annual U.S. traffic zoom toward 1 billion
in 10 years. From Salt Lake City International to New York's JFK, they see a
system on the brink, and many - though not all - believe that a passenger
bill of rights is their only salvation. 

"Based on the epidemic number of strandings since December 23 and the
apparent complete lack of will on the [part of the] airlines to solve the
problem, we need this legislation now," said Kate Hanni, a real estate agent
from Napa, Calif., and head of the newly formed Coalition for Airline
Passenger Bill of Rights. Hanni was trapped on the American flight in
December for nearly 10 hours. 

American blamed bad weather. The airline has apologized to customers and
offered them vouchers. But Hanni, who will testify before the Senate
aviation subcommittee on Wednesday, said the situation should never have
gotten so bad. The ordeal ended only after the pilot taxied back to a gate
without permission. 

"Why would they not let us have a gate in Austin? I went to a couple of
high-level policy advisers for some senators and was told they did not want
to let us in because if they gave us a gate, they would have to cancel the
flight, put us up in a hotel and refund the unused portion of our tickets,"
Hanni said. "Instead, they kept us out on the tarmac indefinitely. They
never canceled our flight; they resumed it the next morning." 
    
Fight for the rights 

The passenger rights bill Hanni proposes is similar to legislation
introduced in February by U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Olympia
Snowe, R-Maine, after a Valentine's Day snow and ice storm that lashed JFK
led JetBlue Airways to strand hundreds passengers for hours and cancel 1,000
flights in an air-traffic mess that lasted six days. In March, Rep. Mike
Thompson, D-Calif., proposed his own bill to the House of Representatives.
Utah's delegation - which regularly flies between Salt Lake City and the
nation's capital - is largely neutral, so far. 

"The airlines don't want this to happen again, and I'm encouraged by the new
policies commercial airlines have put in place," U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch said.
"But I do realize that this isn't the first problem we've had with the
airline industry, so I'm going to watch this closely to see if it merits a
more aggressive approach from Congress." 

Yet despite bipartisan support from many in Congress, the promise of an
investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation and hasty action by
JetBlue to launch its own bill of rights after the New York debacle, it
isn't certain that lawmakers will enact legislation. 

The bills are opposed by the airline companies, including Delta Air Lines
and SkyWest Airlines, which operate most flights at Salt Lake City
International Airport. While the two companies declined to make executives
available for interviews, both carriers issued statements opposing the bill
of rights legislation. 

Pilots and - perhaps most important - even some consumer groups also oppose
a bill of rights for passengers, arguing that such a law would end up
harming consumers by increasing the number of cancellations and leading to a
rise in airfares. 

They maintain that poor behavior by the airlines is less to blame for the
spate of strandings and lousy service than weather, an antiquated
air-traffic-control system and demand by travelers for low fares. They say
the situation is getting progressively worse because planes are more crowded
than ever. 

It's true that to cut costs, airlines have reduced the number and size of
planes in their domestic fleets. They've outsourced many flights to regional
carriers that have spottier service records. And although the airlines have
laid off thousands of front-line workers, leaving them unable to deal with
anything but a blue-sky day, a bill of rights isn't the way to go, critics
say. 

"It's kind of feel-good legislation, but not do-good legislation," said
David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association. "It produces
more bad results than good results in many ways and potentially can increase
cancellations, reduce safety, increase airfares and give one passenger veto
power over everybody else on the plane." 

In one form or another, the measures would require that passengers be
allowed to leave a plane after a ground delay of three hours or more, with
exceptions for safety or if the pilot believes the flight will take off
within 30 minutes. 

Airlines would have to provide adequate food, drinking water, sanitary
bathrooms, air ventilation and a reasonable air temperature inside the
cabin. Passengers would get frequent updates about the cause and outlook for
delays. Airlines could unload passengers from delayed planes without risking
the flight's position in line for takeoff. Airlines would be required to
return lost baggage within 24 hours. Although penalties aren't spelled out
at this point, presumably they would be financial. 
    
Industry 'gone awry' 

The support for a passenger bill of rights seems rooted in the view that the
airlines offer a service. If a retailer provides poor service or a defective
product, the consumer is compensated with no questions asked. Airlines, by
contrast, somehow get a pass, their critics say. 

"A lot of flying [hassles] you can forgive as being part of, they've got a
hard job, weather conditions, whatever. But in my case, they kind of lied to
us as to what was going on," said Mark Long, president of Hollywood FotoFix
in Lehi. 

Long is an advocate of a passenger bill of rights because of an incident
while he was traveling on business in January 2006. He boarded a Continental
Airlines commuter plane at Newark Liberty International Airport for a short
flight to Baltimore. Bad weather prompted the pilot to taxi the plane to a
de-icing station. Long said de-icing fluid was accidentally sprayed into an
engine, knocking it out. 

Passengers sat in the plane for more than six hours without food or drink or
any word from the crew until the flight was canceled, Long said. 

"It was just totally miserable." 

When the 45 passengers finally were allowed to get off, a Continental agent
refused to give them vouchers for hotel rooms or accept responsibility for
helping them while they waited for another flight, Long said. And when
passengers complained loudly, the agent called airport police, who told them
to leave. Long took a taxi to a hotel, paid $165 for a room and got less
than four hours of sleep before returning to the airport. 

"It's an industry that's gone awry. I can't think of another one, other than
the cable [TV] companies, that is as customer-insensitive and is as
ridiculously anal," Long said. 

After the JetBlue meltdown at JFK, Department of Transportation Secretary
Mary Peters called for an investigation. She ordered the department's
inspector general to examine airlines' policies on extended delays and tell
her what the government could do to prevent future collapses. 

"I have serious concerns about airlines' contingency planning that allows
passengers to sit on the tarmac for hours on end. It is imperative that
airlines do everything possible to ensure that situations like these do not
occur again," Peters said in a statement. A probe by Calvin Scovel is under
way. 
    
Bus service for bus fares? 

Critics of a bill of rights for passengers say the American and JetBlue
episodes have unmasked deeper problems with the nation's air-traffic-control
system that the proposed legislation won't fix. 

"What happened in New York and Austin and a few other [places] where there
was extreme weather is extremely isolated," said David Castelveter,
spokesman for the Air Transport Association, a trade group for major U.S.
carriers. Three out of four delays are driven by weather, he said. 

"How do you hold an airline accountable for matters beyond its control like
weather, for delays that are longer than they should be, given the fact that
we have an air-traffic-control system designed in the 1930s?" Castelveter
said. 

The speed of the current radar-based system forces controllers to keep at
least three miles between aircraft. When bad weather moves in, controllers
add more distance for safety reasons. That cuts the number of planes in the
air and causes planes on the ground to stack up. 

Castelveter said a satellite-based system would give controllers and pilots
a picture of the airspace that is updated faster and would permit more
planes to fly closer together in the air and reduce takeoff times on the
ground. 

The airlines association and the Federal Aviation Administration say the
United States should adopt satellite systems similar to those in Canada,
Australia and the United Kingdom. Even Mongolia has a satellite-based air
control system, Castelveter said. 

"It's not impossible to improve customer service. American and JetBlue have
changed their operating procedures based on what happened in Austin and New
York. But those are so rare, given the millions of flights that operate in
bad weather, that we don't find there to be a need for legislation," he
said. 

David Stempler, who directs the Air Travelers Association, maintains
Congress is incapable of crafting a bill of rights law that doesn't spawn
unintended consequences. If an airline cancels long-delayed flights, it
loses revenue and might recoup it by raising ticket prices. Keeping every
plane fully stocked with food and drink, no matter how short or long the
flight, might also lead to higher ticket prices. And because airlines have
been reducing the number of seats they fly in recent years, it might be days
before stranded passengers could be rebooked, he said. 

"It's a combination of an antiquated air-traffic-control system and the
ability to deal with weather," Stempler said. "But the other big fault is
with us, the passengers. We want to pay bus fares for our airline flights.
So now we're getting bus service. "We shouldn't be surprised by that. We're
getting what we paid for." 

Instead of a bill of rights law, the best fix for the airline industry's
shortcomings should be market forces, many experts say. 

"The market will adjust and react to bad customer service just like they
react to bad prices," said C.A. Howlett, senior vice president of public
affairs for US Airways. "We can cite you our own experiences historically in
which we've provided some bad customer service over a period of time and
people booked away from our airline." 

Howlett said JetBlue's response to the New York disaster shows why no
airline wants to inconvenience customers to the point they call for
government action. Days after the incident, JetBlue CEO David Neeleman
issued an anguished apology to customers and vowed employees would have the
necessary resources to handle future weather challenges. 

"The cost associated with what JetBlue did, and the bad public relations, is
more than enough to get an airline to fix the problem," Howlett said. "So
our view is we ought to let the market fix it." 

Passengers want right to ... 

Get off the plane after any ground delay of three hours or more. Exceptions
are: 
    
    * Pilot will allow two 30-minute exceptions, if departure isn't later
than 30 minutes after the delay. 
    * Pilot determines if permitting a passenger to deplane would jeopardize
safety or security. 
        
    Be comfortable with amenities such as adequate food, drinking water,
sanitary facilities, air ventilation and reasonable cabin temperature
onboard. 
    
    Be told about delays at the airport and aboard the aircraft. Passengers
are updated on what the cause and timing problems are. 
    
    Display detailed information at the time of ticket purchase about
whether a particular route is chronically delayed or canceled. 
    
    Retrieve baggage within 24 hours, if possible. 
    
    Have the Passenger Bill of Rights that is drafted by airlines displayed
prominently to passengers. 
    
    Know the lowest fare by having it made readily available to the
traveling public by the airline. 
    
    Sources: U.S. Department of Transportation; Federal Aviation
Administration

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