Do we need a passenger bill of rights?
First time here? Check out the site's "greatest hits" or read a random post from the archives. Feel free to ask a question, and consider subscribing to the latest posts via RSS or e-mail. Thanks for visiting!
Back on December 29, passengers on board American Airlines’ flight 1348 from San Francisco to Dallas experienced the textbook definition of airline hell. A delayed takeoff due to a mechanical. A weather-related diversion to Austin, where no one was allowed to deplane for nine hours. Overflowing toilets. Minimal food. All trapped on board an MD-80. Scott McCartney’s account of the flight is the definitive treatment.
Passengers on board that flight, and their equally angry compatriots from other flights, are still fuming. Their lawyers claim that the airline has never apologized for the treatment. Now, they’re calling for the U.S. Congress to pass a passengers’ bill of rights.
The European Union already has a passenger bill of rights in place. Most famously, it calls for cash payments when the airline delays you for reasons other than weather or acts of God.
See below for the complete Passenger Bill of Rights proposal. Remember, this is just a proposal, as written by a law firm representing angry travelers, and some of it may be pie-in-the-sky. (Do they really think they can control codeshare partners? Good luck with that!) But are they on to something? Read below, then sound off!
Proposed
BILL OF RIGHTS
for Airline Passengers
All American air carriers shall abide by the following standards to ensure the safety, security and comfort of their passengers:
• Establish procedures to respond to all passenger complaints within 24 hours and with appropriate resolution within 2 weeks.
• Notify passengers within ten minutes of a delay of known diversions, delays and cancellations via airport overhead announcement, on aircraft announcement, and posting on airport television monitors.
• Establish procedures for returning passengers to terminal gate when delays occur so that no plane sits on the tarmac for longer than three hours without connecting to a gate.
• Provide for the essential needs of passengers during air- or ground-based delays of longer than 3 hours, including food, water, sanitary facilities, and access to medical attention.
• Provide for the needs of disabled, elderly and special needs passengers by establishing procedures for assisting with the moving and retrieving of baggage, and the moving of passengers from one area of airport to another at all times by airline personnel.
• Publish and update monthly on the company’s public web site a list of chronically delayed flights, meaning those flight delayed thirty minutes or more, at least forty percent of the time, during a single month.
• Compensate “bumped” passengers or passengers delayed due to flight cancellations or postponements of over 12 hours by refund of 150% of ticket price.
• The formal implementation of a Passenger Review Committee, made up of non-airline executives and employees but rather passengers and consumers — that would have the formal ability to review and investigate complaints.
• Make lowest fare information, schedules and itineraries, cancellation policies and frequent flyer program requirements available in an easily accessed location and updated in real-time.
• Ensure that baggage is handled without delay or injury; if baggage is lost or misplaced, the airline shall notify customer of baggage status within 12 hours and provide compensation equal to current market value of baggage and its contents.
• Require that these rights apply equally to all airline code-share partners including international partners
(Thanks Benet!)
RSS Feed / Subscribe
Subscribe to Posts by Email
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:05 pm |
Most of these provisions are pretty sensible. Three hours is in fact pretty generous, I think, if you’re stuck in the plane away from the gate.
The chronically delayed flights are available from the government already, but i guess this proposal wants the airlines to repost that.
Agreed, how do you apply this stuff to codeshare partners, especially internationally?
This is a big one:
Compensate “bumped” passengers or passengers delayed due to flight cancellations or postponements of over 12 hours by refund of 150% of ticket price.
Screw those vouchers that they give you. Give me cash!
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:08 pm |
Not sure if it’s possible to apply these rules blindly to codeshare partners, but the Bill of Rights should apply to all flights operated by foreign carriers originating in the US. It would be rather difficult to have US laws apply to random flights going from, say Poland to Russia just because LOT happens to be a codeshare partner of United.
The other rules seem very reasonable. I sure wouldn’t want to be stuck in a grounded airplane for even three hours. I guess one could always fake a medical problem to get off the plane; with overflowing restrooms it wouldn’t be an unlikely scenario anyway.
January 25th, 2007 at 8:41 am |
[…] The idea of a passenger bill of rights is not new, but there hasn’t quite been a “movement” yet. The issue is getting some fresh attention lately, though. […]
January 28th, 2007 at 7:08 am |
A law firm did not draft the bill of rights. I did, based on prior attempts and with input from other passengers on this flight. Not bad for a group of upset passengers…
Kate Hanni
Flight 1348
January 31st, 2007 at 3:10 am |
Please sign the petition for the Passenger’s Bill of Rights if you are in agreement.
http://www.petitiononline.com/airline/petition.html
Thank you!
February 10th, 2007 at 10:13 am |
[…] The draft PBOR is posted here and at the angry passengers’ blog. A petition is available, too, if you want to show your support. […]
April 9th, 2008 at 1:26 am |
Not only to air passengers need a Bills of Rights but it should be mandated via the FAA and any and all carriers [barring private corporate services] should be made to adhere to it. Look we taxpayers have subsidized some of these carriers that should have gone belly up and dissolved long ago. Recently [actually since most of these domestic carriers have emerged from bankruptcy], there have been a wave of flight cancellations blamed on everything from bad climate to computer glitchs but the main culprit is rising fuel and labour costs outpacing the airlines abilities to make profit. So, it is easy to cancel flights [default pilot and staff furlough], this cuts fuel and labour costs but meanwhile, passengers who have purchased locked in non-refundable tickets with tacked on fuel surcharges fees get left in the cold. You are not going to make the code-share provisions “fly” due to the tie-in with foreign carriers who can not be made to adhere to US law provisions. Study the Euro charter and tweak it for US conditions.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:33 am |
[…] Related: - Will a passenger bill of rights be enforceable? - Update: How to support the Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights - Do we need a passenger bill of rights? […]