Passing a Passenger Bill of Rights Bill Meets With Delays
Thursday, July 05, 2007PAUL KANGAS: Flight delays are becoming more common this summer. Now, Congress is working on a passenger bill of rights that would help travelers who are stranded for hours in airports or on runways. It's part of the Federal Aviation Administration's reauthorization bill and as Stephanie Dhue reports, the proposals are drawing criticism from both sides.
STEPHANIE DHUE, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: The nightmare scenario of passengers trapped for hours inside airplanes on the runway drove Congress to rush for passage of a passenger bill of rights to protect air travelers. But passenger advocates say it doesn't go far enough. Paul Hudson of the Aviation Consumer Action Project says there needs to be a limit on how long people can be stuck on a tarmac.
PAUL HUDSON, EXEC. DIR., AVIATION CONSUMER ACTION PROJECT: You have to draw the line somewhere. We have curfews that are meant to protect residents from noise after 11:00 or midnight in many airports. Pilots have duty rules that allows them only to work so many hours. Passengers need some kind of assurance.
DHUE: Hudson says the bill currently moving through Congress offers only some of the assurances passengers deserve. Not included is a provision that would give passengers the right to de-plane after three hours, a condition Hudson and other passenger advocates are pushing for. But the proposal would require the airlines to provide food, water, restrooms, cabin ventilation and medical care whenever an aircraft is stuck on the ground for more than three hours. And there is also a requirement for airlines to notify passengers of chronically late flights. Bad weather is one of the primary factors leading to flight delays, and weather-related setbacks often ripple through the system, causing massive delays across the country. Passenger advocates say airlines should limit their flight capacity so delays don't snowball.
JOHN MEENAN, EXEC. VP, AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION: You would not run banks with zero reserves or negative reserves. You would not allow most anything -- insurance company, a bank, any major institution that serves the public -- to operate with no reserves.
DHUE: But John Meenan of the Air Transport Association says the restrictions Congress is considering will limit flexibility and actually increase delays.
HUDSON: Right now, with loads being as high as they are this summer, there is a great incentive to try to get that flight to operate. If you have to pull into the terminal at some arbitrarily set time limit, that flight isn't going to operate. Those people are going to end up having to be rebooked on other flights, conceivably at much greater inconvenience.
DHUE: The airline industry says the key problem is the outdated air traffic control system. Suzanne Fletcher of the National Business Travel Association says Congress is missing the bigger issue.
SUZANNE FLETCHER, PRES., NATIONAL BUSINESS TRAVEL ASSN. A quick fix of just writing a passenger bill of rights is not the appropriate fix. We need a long-term program that will fix the overall air transportation system.
DHUE: Delays are expected to get worse, whether or not Congress passes an airline passenger bill of rights. Already this year, a quarter of flights were late and those delays were 40 percent longer than a year ago. Stephanie Dhue, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Reagan Washington National Airport.
