"Editorial: Stuck? 'Sorry" isn't good enough"

Monday, July 2, 2007

Stuck?
Mercury News Editorial
The San Jose (CA) Mercury News


A planeful of passengers traveling on Continental from Amsterdam to Newark,
N.J., in mid-June suffered through stinking, overflowing toilets during an
arduous two-day journey that included an overnight stop in Ireland to make
airplane repairs that didn't work.

Northwest Airlines has canceled as many as 16 percent of its flights every
day since June 22 because of a pilot shortage and summer storms.

At San Francisco International Airport, nearly 400 passengers were trapped
from midnight to 7:30 a.m. June 19 on a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong
that never even left the gate.

The airlines' response to the increasingly common service disasters: "Sorry
about the inconvenience, folks. Thank you for flying `We Don't Care
Airlines.' B'bye now."

Sorry, airlines, but "sorry" isn't good enough. Passengers deserve
compensation when they are stuck on a grounded plane for hours without food
and water or have their flight canceled because of an airline's poor
planning.

Congress needs to follow the lead of the European Union and require airlines
to compensate passengers - in cash, not vouchers - when they are subject to
lengthy delays and flight cancellations under the airline's control.

Airlines shouldn't be penalized for events outside their control, such as
bad weather and air traffic delays. But it's no secret that the major
carriers are aggressively understaffing and overbooking their operations.
This summer, a record 209 million passengers are expected to pack onto
planes that will be, on average, 85 percent full. That leaves little margin
to adjust when things go wrong, such as a mechanical problem or an
unexpected diversion to another airport.

The industry says that unhappy passengers can always switch to a competitor.
But the reality is that each airport is served by just a few carriers, and
service is pretty lousy on all of them.

Leading the reform crusade is Kate Hanni, a Napa resident who was trapped
for hours on a grounded American Airlines plane in December. She founded a
group called the Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights, and
she has devoted herself full time to publicizing airline service nightmares
and lobbying Congress.

The House and Senate are considering new customer protections. But as
currently written, the bills only require airlines and airports to file
contingency plans for planes stuck on the ground for extended periods.

Aggrieved passengers get nothing.

Congress must set up a system to compensate travelers for major airline
service failures. Right now, the law only addresses passengers bumped from
an overbooked flight.

Two years ago, the EU mandated compensation for passengers who face delays
or flight cancellations in Europe. If an airline cancels your flight because
of mechanical problems, for example, it must offer you a cash refund of your
ticket price, a free flight back to your point of departure and 600 euros
(about $807).

Although that's too high for U.S. airlines just becoming profitable again
after years of losses, some penalties are necessary to give airlines the
economic incentive to treat their customers better.

IF YOU'RE INTERESTED

Are you frustrated by poor airline customer service? Let off some steam by
listening to "We've Gotta Get Outta This Plane," a funny parody sung by Kate
Hanni and Reed Fromer. You can find it with the online version of this
editorial at www.mercurynews.com/opinion

Related Stories:

DOT-IG Report Calls for Airlines to Fulfill Customer Service Promises (Feb.
2001)
http://archives.californiaaviation.org/airport/msg13251.html

House and Senate Panels Back $3 Billion in Aid to Airlines (April, 2003)
http://archives.californiaaviation.org/airport/msg25598.html

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