Monday, August 20, 2007
Our
view on airline passenger rights: How airlines mistreat fliers and get Congress
to go along
Financially ailing airlines find millions for lobbyists,
donations.
USA Today
Chalk up another
trapped-on-a-plane ordeal for passengers and another customer-service fiasco to
airline bumbling.
On July 29, Continental jetliner bound for Newark,
N.J., from Venezuela, was diverted to Baltimore, where passengers sat trapped on
the tarmac for more than four hours. Even as food and water ran out and toilet
facilities deteriorated, they were given little information. Finally, the
passengers started clapping in unison and slapping the overhead bins to protest.
Police were called. According to a letter to Continental, signed by more than 70
fliers, they were escorted to an airport transit lounge by "overzealous officers
with an attack dog" and "treated as criminals."
At least they got off the
plane. While Continental disputes some details, Flight 1669Y joins an infamous
list of flights since last December on which passengers were stranded for up to
11 hours.
There oughta be a law, right? Something to mandate decent
treatment and a limit on how long passengers may be trapped.
But none
appears imminent. Measures moving through Congress to mandate better airline
behavior have been so weakened that they are almost meaningless.
The
airline industry, which opposes new mandates, has lobbied with great success.
While it can't seem to scare up a bag of peanuts to feed stranded fliers, it
coughed up millions to fuel lawmakers' campaigns and to finance its lobbying
activities.
In 2005 and 2006, employees and political action committees
(PACs) at nine major airlines and their trade group, the Air Transport
Association (ATA), gave $2.4 million to House and Senate candidates, political
parties and other PACs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a group
that tracks campaign and lobbying expenditures. Last year, the ATA and eight
major airlines spent more than $15 million on lobbying. The industry, including
several foreign airlines, had 264 registered lobbyists.
Such largesse is
just one among scores of examples of how thoroughly money has contaminated
political decision-making, but it is a telling one.
Just ask Kate Hanni,
who became a passenger rights advocate after she was stranded on an American
Airlines flight in December. When she asked congressional aides if opponents of
the measures had visited them, she was told, "For every one of you [consumers]
that comes in, there are four airline lobbyists."
The struggle to force
airlines to do what most businesses do on their own — treat customers decently —
repeats a battle fought in 1999.
Then, industry lobbying killed a bill
that would have forced it to improve service. Instead it negotiated a voluntary,
12-point "Customers First" commitment.
A review last year by the
Transportation Department's inspector general found the airlines failed to meet
some of their most basic promises, such as giving customers timely, adequate
information about delays.
Another vow? To "meet customers' essential
needs during long on-aircraft delays," including food, water and bathroom
facilities. That clearly hasn't been followed.
If airlines put as much
effort into meeting customers' needs as they do into lobbying against consumer
laws, then perhaps there might be fewer horror stories. And if Congress paid
more attention to consumers than to its industry patrons, perhaps it would force
airlines to act with common decency.
Playing politics
Despite
industry financial troubles, employees and political action committees of the
nation’s top airlines and their trade group gave more than $2.4 million in 2005
and 2006 to political parties, PACs and congressional candidates.
AMR
Corp.: $563,000
Continental: $346,000
Southwest: $319,000
Northwest:
$292,000
UAL Corp.: $276,000
Delta: $188,000
Air Transport Assoc.:
$168,000
US Airways: $147,000
Alaska Air: $88,000
JetBlue:
$53,000
Source: Center for Responsive Politics research based on Federal
Election Commission reports through Feb. 19, 2007.
