U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog: Airline Passenger Rights Followup

At Wednesday's hearing (See video webcast and all witness statements, including ours and that of three other consumer advocates) on proposed legislation to grant airline passengers basic rights when wrongly "imprisoned" on planes stuck on the tarmac, our champions, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) asked the DOT and the Air Transport Association witnesses some tough questions. Michael Reynolds, DOT's DAS for Aviation, kept telling Senator Snowe that DOT's "market" approach to customer service was working, and when it didn't, not to worry, because of "section 41712 of Title 49 of the U.S. Code, which broadly prohibits unfair and deceptive practices and unfair methods of competition in air transportation." Nice try, Mr. Reynolds, except Senator Snowe wasn't buying it, and sitting next to you was your fellow witness, The Honorable Calvin Scovel III Inspector General, U.S. Department of Transportation, who testified:

The Department should take a more active role in airline customer service issues. ... We found that while the Office has made efforts to enforce civil rights violations, it needs to improve its oversight of consumer protection laws, including its efforts to monitor compliance with the terms and conditions of enforcement actions. In recent years, the Office has not conducted on-site compliance reviews, relying instead on self-certifications and company-prepared reports submitted by the air carriers without supporting documentation.

Then, after James C. May, President and CEO, Air Transport Association of America, Inc. testified that the Boxer-Snowe reform legislation was unnecessary, Senator Boxer called his testimony "incredulous." In addition to testimony by me and by Paul Hudson of the Aviation Consumer Action Project, the committee also heard riveting testimony from the two other stars of the hearing, in addition to Senators Boxer and Snowe. First was Kate Hanni (testimony), a December victim of the Austin, TX American Airlines runway incidents in December. Kate has since founded the Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights. She was accompanied by a number of other citizen volunteers and fellow victims. It was nice to see a Washington hearing with real people filling the room. One of those real people was Rahul Chandran, the fourth pro-consumer witness. He's a three time loser. He was trapped for hours in 1999 in the infamous Detroit incident involving Northwest, then again in 2000 at Washington Dulles on a small United plane, and just last month at JFK on a Cathay Pacific flight. Kate's and Rahul's stories were compelling.

The event was widely covered (USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday and its affiliates, and other outlets). A House hearing on HR 1303 (Mike Thompson (D-CA)-Barbara Cubin (R-WY)) is expected next Friday in the Aviation Subcommiittee of the Transportation Committee. If you've got an airline complaint, you need to let Congress know. Real stories from real people offer us our best shot to win reforms. Our previous blog.