Will a passenger bill of rights be enforceable?
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The hubbub about the proposed passenger bill of rights last week is still alive and well, if my e-mail inbox is any indication. Several readers have written, asking for more information, or ways of supporting the cause of such a bill. (Let’s call it the PBOR for short, giving it that official-sounding government-ese acronymic flavor, and cutting down on my typing…)
The draft PBOR is posted here and at the angry passengers’ blog. A petition is available, too, if you want to show your support.
Congress is taking the PBOR seriously, and I think that’s a good thing, but even if such a bill passes, would it be enforceable? How do you determine blame? And if so, what are the penalties?
Most of the goals that the PBOR sets out are rules or requirements, but the only penalty that’s referenced is for flight cancellation or delay of 12 hours or greater.
For example: “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.” No doubt, that’s a reasonable goal, but whom do you blame, and what are the consequences, if this doesn’t happen?
I sat on the ground for hours once at O’Hare, flying back from Philadelphia, after a snowstorm wreaked havoc on Chicago aviation. (This was the same day, in 2005, when the Southwest plane went off the runway and into the streets of Chicago.) The 737 I was on was parked for hours on the outskirts of the airport, waiting for a gate to open. The rear toilets overflowed. It was one of the few times that I wished I was at a European airport like Frankfurt, where every other flight is parked out in the middle of nowhere and passengers are bused back to the terminal. There was no bus for us. Just a long wait, until another gate opened up. But with so much snow falling, few aircraft actually left their gates.
So who was to blame? The airline? The airport? The weather?
The problem with any such legislation isn’t the determination of what the desired outcome should be. It’s the determination of who is to blame when that outcome isn’t reached.
Related:
- Update: How to support the Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights
- Do we need a passenger bill of rights?
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February 3rd, 2007 at 10:44 am |
> It’s the determination of who is to blame when that outcome isn’t reached.
Well, not the passenger, that’s for sure. So have the airport and the airline duke it out *after* the passenger has been compensated.
February 10th, 2007 at 10:31 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? […]
February 21st, 2007 at 1:21 pm |
[…] I assume a claim would be filed with the airline. Yes, passing a bill of rights will create hassles for the airlines, the airports, and everyone in between, as they point fingers, pointing out whom to blame. I initially felt that a PBOR would be difficult to implement for precisely such reasons. But as commenter Oliver pointed out, that would be the airline’s problem, not yours. If a regulation exists that mandates a minimum threshold of service, then it should be up to the airline to meet that threshold, if necessary by putting pressure on vendors, airports, and regulatory bodies to make sure it happens. « JetBlue announces their own bill of rights and compensation plan, but should we really care? […]