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September 26, 2007
DOT inspector General Issues Runway Delays Report
The long-awaited report from DOT Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel III on airline delays is out. No recommendation on what to do to solve the problem of excessive delays. From its summary: Flight delays and cancellations continue as a major source of customer dissatisfaction and is further compounded by reduced capacity and increased demand which leads to increased passenger inconvenience and dissatisfaction with customer service. Translation: Flyers are mad as hell, the airlines and DOT have combined to create the mess and it is only going to get worse. From Jeff Bailey's story No Limit for Waits on Runways in the New York Times: Months after thousands of passengers were stranded for hours on airport runways last winter, airlines still have not agreed on how many hours confined passengers would have to wait before they can demand to be released from a plane, the Transportation Department's inspector general has found. The story goes on to quote passenger rights advocate Paul Hudson of the Aviation Consumer Action Project, who said that
the inspector general's office "did a reasonably good job investigating the problem." However, he added, "the recommendations are as weak-to-nonexistent as ever. There is no mention of the word 'rights.'" From Del Wilber's Washington Post story Regulators Urged to Steer Airlines Toward Better Customer Service: Among Scovel's recommendations: Airlines need to set time limits on tarmac delays and set targets for reducing chronically delayed or canceled flights. Airlines should post statistics for on-time flight performance on their Web sites. Customer-service agents should be required to report a flight's on-time record to passengers when they call to book tickets. Large and medium-size airports should be required to establish ways to monitor and mitigate lengthy on-board delays. A national task force of airlines, airports and regulators should be established to create plans to deal with lengthy delays. For more information, see the website of the PIRG-backed Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights (flyersrights.org).
Posted by Ed Mierzwinski at September 26, 2007 06:37 AM
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