The passengers’ bill of rights is gaining more steam, in light of jetBlue’s latest gaffe. But will it become law? Will this provide the impetus to turn a bill into law? Sound off.
The American Airlines passengers stranded back in December have their blog, pushing for a bill, and now the jetBlue passengers have their own site as well.
As Chris Elliott points out, the blogosphere is largely calling for passage of such legislation. Not everyone agrees, though. For example, the Cranky Flier argues against the bill.
My view is that we do indeed need a bill, since we can’t trust the airlines to adequately police themselves. And while I accept arguments like Cranky’s that airlines don’t WANT to keep passengers hostage onboard their planes, there aren’t sufficient incentives (or punishments) in place to make airlines do the right thing.
In both the American Airlines and jetBlue cases, there were opportunities to bring a plane back to the terminal, to let the passengers out. For various reasons, not limited to weather, the airlines chose not to do so. That’s unacceptable. In my view, passengers should have the legally codified right to not sit on a plane for an open-ended stretch of time. That’s the key. If the only way to give teeth to such a rule is to mandate fines for violations, then fine.
Naturally, the airlines will resist this, tooth and nail. They have lobbyists and can make contributions to the senators and representatives whose committees oversee transportation issues. But public outrage is pretty loud here.
So I put the question to you.
Will a Passengers’ Bill of Rights become law? I’ve (hastily) thrown together a short survey. Take the poll. Results next week.
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February 17th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
A Passengers’ Bill of Rights is essential if passengrs are ever to have the chance of fair deal.Tthe Airlines have their own powerful organisation IATA, the Pilots their own , th airports have one too, even the cabin crew have one and the ground crew through their their unions have a strong say but the people who pay for the whole business have no representation, no voice. Its criminal really. Years ago ( late 1960’s) I started a passengers organisation Society of National air Passengers when I was a Fleet Street ( English) aviation journalist . It gained tremendous support. Perhaps I should reactivate it. At least we would be able to give voice to passengers and stand up to the airines and their well paid lobbyists. Peter Bostock
February 18th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
These recent problems are not new problems and are systemic problems. Failure on the airlines part to set clear guidelines for their operations and to communicate those guidelines to the passengers have lingered for too many years. So yes a bill of rights is very likely to get pushed through this time despite heavy lobbying by the airline industry. However, a bill of rights that concentrates on financial compensation is the wrong approach and will not fix the problem. The real question is, will an of the various bill of rights floating around actually fix the problem? I doubt it.
February 19th, 2007 at 10:02 am
[...] Related: – Poll: Will a Passengers’ Bill of Rights become law? – Instant replay? JetBlue passengers stuck on planes for over 9 hours – Should we trust airlines to improve passenger rights? [...]
February 19th, 2007 at 2:29 pm
[...] Maybe Regulation Can Be a Good Thing. Apparently it takes leaving Joe Scarborough on a plane for 9 hours to get something going in this country. But now, it looks as though the flying public may actually perhaps have some rights as travellers. If it can get rammed through Congress, if lobbyists don’t kill it, if the airlines don’t try to head it off by offering a non-binding “promise.” If you want to keep up with this topic, don’t forget to stick with Upgrade Travel Better. [...]
February 21st, 2007 at 12:02 pm
[...] For starters: Late last week, I solicited reader opinions on whether or not the passengers’ bill of rights would become law. This was before the jetBlue fiasco went from a small number of planes stuck on the ground to a multi-day festival of flight cancellations. There were some interesting long-form responses in there, which I’ll address in another post, but the summary: 69% of you predicted that, yes, a passengers’ bill of rights would become law, while 31% said no. [...]
March 5th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
[...] But as much as I wanted to avoid The Story That Won’t Go Away for a few days, I realize I promised you a post which included some of your answers to my poll (now closed) regarding a bill of rights and its odds of becoming law. [...]