Jet Blue is now charging $7 for a pillows and blanket (but, you can take it with you), according to today's news. And last week, American Airlines starting charging two bucks for water. From the New York Times editorial board blog:
Charging more for first class, or for in-flight entertainment sounds like good business sense. Charging a tired person for a pillow or a thirsty person — trapped in a confined space where the tap water is undrinkable — for water just sounds mean.
Get any email from your frequent flyer program lately urging you to take action on oil prices? Today's Wall Street Journal has an article about the airlines' joint campaign www.stopoilspeculationnow.com against oil price speculation. The story Airline Oil Lobbying Alarms Financial Firms (pd subs. req'd) by Elizabeth Williamson says:
Many economists join financiers in saying the attacks on speculators, while politically appealing, make little economic sense. They say speculation is less responsible for spiraling oil prices than is turmoil in supplier countries and the weakness of the dollar on world markets.
Yet, in his recent testimony before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming , Dr. Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America argued that the speculative bubble could account for "about one-third of the world price," based on Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations reports and other data.
Dr. Cooper says:
The upward pressure that speculation puts on prices is not limited to crude, but applies to the whole energy complex and recent months have seen sharp increases in gasoline prices despite weakening fundamentals.[...]Growing global demand certainly has played a role in triggering the price spiral of recent years, but in a well-functioning market, steadily growing demand would not cause such a powerful upward surge in prices and a huge increase in volatility (see Attachment 5). It is the failure on the supply-side to invest, mergers resulting in highly concentrated markets, and barriers to entry that have allowed the cartel and the oligopoly to profit at the expense of the public. Speculation magnifies the upward spiral.
The airline-backed coalition, and senior members of Congress, back changes to the rules of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to reduce the impact of speculation. PIRG has long backed some of these reforms, including unsuccessful efforts to close the Enron loophole opened during the reign of then-CFTC chair Wendy Gramm and to reverse later amendments to the CFTC championed by her husband, former Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX). These issues are explained in this recent Texas Observer article by Patricia Hart and a recent "Fresh Air" interview with Professor Michael Greenberger.
Airline Bill of Rights May Come to the House Floor this week
In a press conference yesterday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said that a new free-standing version of PIRG-backed Airline Passenger Rights legislation, HR 6355, sponsored by Transportation Committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) and Aviation subcommittee chair Jerry Costello (D-IL), may come to the House floor this week. The bill also includes some more-controversial provisions concerning FAA employee bargaining rights, which could torpedo the plan to move the bill. Senate action on a bigger FAA bill (previous blog) including airline passenger rights reforms has been delayed over funding unrelated air traffic control system improvements, so maybe they should move a free-standing bill also.
Senate leaves airline passenger rights on the runway
Today a cloture motion to limit debate on the FAA reauthorization was defeated 49-42 (60 YEA votes needed; pro-consumer vote YEA). So, the bill's strong airline passenger safety and rights provisions were left on the runway over bickering over other matters. The bill has been pulled for further negotiations.
We've joined the Coalition for an Airline Passenger's Bill of Rights (flyersrights.org) and other leading consumer groups in a letter urging the Senate to maintain the strongest possible passenger rights language in the FAA Reauthorization Bill, HR 2881, on the floor this week. Just as the banks are whining about credit card reform -- don't hit us while we are down -- so are the airlines. But the airlines deserve nothing from the Congress (and they're expecting a lot) unless the Congress also guarantees that passengers will be treated with dignity. The airlines haven't guaranteed that, and that's a big part of their problem. Here's a Youtube video blog interview I did last summer with Kate Hanni, a stranded passenger who founded the coalition.
CQ Today (Congressional Quarterly) is reporting this afternoon that "Two Senate committees have broken their deadlock over financing upgrades to the nation's air traffic control system, clearing the way for a long-delayed Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization to move to the floor Monday, according to industry sources..." We're hearing the same thing. The comprehensive bill includes landmark language guaranteeing stranded passengers a bill of rights. Action will start on the Senate floor Monday night. Along with Kate Hanni and her Coalition for An Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights, (flyersrights.org) we'll be backing strengthening amendments and opposing weakening amendments. The House version has already passed.
We had a tough loss in the appellate courts last week, when New York State's pioneering airline passenger bill of rights was struck down under the usual weak judicial analysis: vague preemption precedents trump a state's traditional and well-established police powers to protect its citizens, even when no federal law exists. The New York Times editorial Board Blog has an entry Bad News for Airline Passengers, with 71 comments.
Meanwhile, you may be wondering why all your flights are being canceled for inspections. It's because the inspections weren't done on schedule. Why not? Well, it appears that the FAA let the airlines slack off.
So the FAA came under harsh Congressional scrutiny this week for its apparently cozy relationship with its "customer" airlines as the Congress drilled down at the question: "Why did FAA inspectors let Southwest Airlines fly un-inspected planes then found to have cracks in the skin (and still allowed to fly) and why is United all-of-a-sudden grounding flights?" Chairman James Oberstar (D-MN) of the House Committee on Infrastructure and Transportation led the hearing. From Mathew Wald's story Inspectors Say FAA Inspectors Ignored Violations in the New York Times:
"You’re looking at safety as a system, and the system itself has cracks," he said. The F.A.A. now refers to airlines as its customers, he said. "We can’t have a situation in which the customer calls the F.A.A. to complain about their service person, Mr. Boutris, to get him removed,” said Mr. Oberstar.
The FAA's reliance on airlines to voluntarily disclose safety issues "promotes a pattern of excessive leniency at the expense of effective oversight and appropriate enforcement," Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel told the House Transportation Committee yesterday.
New York air passenger rights law knocked down on preemption grounds
In the latest imposition of federal preemption on a state's longstanding "police powers" to protect its citizens, a federal appellate court has overruled a district judge decision upholding New York's pioneering airline passenger rights law. The law was championed by the PIRG-backed Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights (flyersrights.org). While the U.S. House of Representatives has enacted a more modest version of the New York law; similar legislation is trapped on the ground in the Senate. Story on the court decision by Ken Belson of the New York Times: Court Strikes Down State Law Protecting Fliers.
US judge rejects airline preemption claim in NY case
On Wednesday, U.S. district judge Lawrence Kahn ruled against (decision) the Air Transport Association in its lawsuit seeking to overturn New York State's first-in-the-nation airline passenger bill of rights law, holding that federal law does not preempt New York from granting passenger rights. Excerpt:
The field of health and safety is one of the most established areas of state police power.[...] Like regulations governing blood collection, or the protection of groundwater, the Passenger Bill of Rights is an exercise in state protection of the public health. Fresh air, water, sanitation and food are necessities in the extreme situation in which this act applies. It threatens the public health to contain people on grounded airplanes for hours without these necessities, particularly, though not exclusively, if passengers include diabetics, young children, the sick or the frail. Because the Passenger Bill of Rights involves the historic police power of New York State, Plaintiff bears a heavy burden in seeking to overcome the presumption against preemption. [citations omitted]
In a victory for air travelers, a federal judge in Albany upheld on Thursday a state law that would penalize airlines that fail to provide adequate services to passengers trapped on the tarmac for more than three hours. The decision, which the Air Transport Association, an airline industry group, opposed, paves the way for other states to write similar laws. It also means that beginning Jan. 1, airlines operating in New York can be fined up to $1,000 a passenger if they do not supply water, fresh air, power and working restrooms during lengthy delays.
The Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights (flyersrights.org) intervened on behalf of the state. This is a big victory, but the case will likely continue on appeal.
Flying this holiday? Watch for passenger rights volunteers in the airports
Members of the PIRG-backed Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights or flyersrights.org are leafleting in airports around the country today. Here are some excellent video clips from FOX and AP from a news conference at JFK by Kate Hanni of CAPBOR yesterday. The AP clip includes excerpts from the CAPBOR Stranded Passenger Survival Kit. Stranded? Other hassles? Call the 24-hour Flyersrights Hotline: 877-FLYERS6 (877-359-3776). Here is a Youtube video blog I did with Kate, featuring that emergency kit.
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.'"
The House today -- on a 267-151 vote -- passed an FAA reauthorization bill, HR 2881, containing a number of strong passenger rights provisions. Usually, bills get weaker as they go through Congress; this bill got better before it went to the floor. That's no doubt due to the growing demands from citizens and victims across the country organized into the Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights. (See previous blog). Here's a statement on passage from Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), chief sponsor of the Airline Passengers Bill of Rights proposal (R 1303). Much of that proposed bill was added into the final FAA bill. Congress probably would not have acted except that thousands of citizens complained about being treated worse than cattle by the airlines. The Senate's companion FAA bill, which includes some passenger rights language but also some more controversial provisions related to funding for its core purpose of modernizing air traffic control, must now go to the Senate floor.
Yesterday's airline passenger rights mock strand-in on the mall organized by the PIRG-backed Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights (the group is pictured top left) was a big success. At the event, Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) announced that he had negotiated a provision that "excessive delays" would require a right for passengers to deplane into an FAA reauthorization bill expected to be heard on the House floor today. Previous versions of the bill had only included some of the coalition's more modest demands, such as the right to potable water and working toilets. At bottom, that's coalition founder Kate Hanni addressing the crowd. Here's the New York Times story, with several photos. Excerpt:
Yesterday, Ms. Hanni staged what she called a "strand-in" near the Capitol in Washington, in a bid to keep up momentum for the get-off-the-plane legislation she wants enacted, over objections from the airline industry. A long tent was outfitted to resemble the interior of an airline, and wings were drawn on its exterior in duct tape. She offered long-shot invitations to members of Congress to experience confinement, replete with smelly portable toilets Ms. Hanni and fellow volunteers had rounded up. For the record, American said Flight 1348's toilets never overflowed.
Here is the Florida Sun Sentinel, with a nice AP shot of volunteers sitting in the plane. Here is the Atlanta Journal Constitution story. .
That's Kate, inside the mock plane with reform supporter and U.S. Rep. Ron Klein (D-FL). Next photo: Here are the media hordes gathering for the news conference. CNN and one other outlet even brought satellite trucks for live remotes. In the orange hat is coalition research and props director Mark Mogel, who designed and built the plane. Next, on right, here's a shot of me addressing the crowd. Finally, at the very bottom, that's passenger rights supporter and new U.S. Rep. John Hall (D-NY). Hall is a longtime environmental and anti-nuclear activist, and as most of you know, also a rock star as leader of Orleans and the John Hall Band.
Sidebar: When I was with ConnPIRG, we worked several 1981-82 anti-nuclear fundraising shows at Yale's Woolsey Hall and other venues as the official anti-nuclear organization that collected signatures and handed out literature. The shows featured Bonnie Raitt backed by the John Hall Band. Incredible shows from incredible citizen-activist-musicians. Three quick vignettes from the Woolsey show: (1) I picked up the legendary late folksinger Dave Van Ronk, who was the opening act, at the New Haven train station with my Volkswagen bug. He was wasn't hard to find-- large bearded guy, small train station, guitar case, whiskey flask, sitting and reading a pulp science fiction novel. (2) Also, Yale student Jodie Foster stopped and volunteered at our table. Despite everyone wanting her autograph, she instead made them sign petitions. (3) Bonnie dedicated a raucous version of her song Three Time Loser to the Connecticut nuclear power plants Millstone I, II and III. Hall, along with Raitt and others, was a key founder of Musicians United for Safe Energy. It's good to have him in Congress. We can always use another consumer and environmental activist making laws.
There's a nice opener in Monday's Washington Post for Wednesday's airline passenger strand-in event on the mall Wednesday. The story by Del Quentin Wilber is called Anger over Airline Delays Spurs Passengers' Coalition Into Action. It includes a nice feature on Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights founder Kate Hanni and quotes coalition research director Mark Mogel commenting that "The airlines picked a fight with the wrong woman." While the story notes that Mogel's "test flight" of the strand-in's mock plane was held on the runway Sunday due to lack of a permit for a local park, CAPBOR does have one for Wednesday. Come to the Mall between 11am-1pm to participate and sit in the "plane." The event will be mid-mall, at 12th Street, between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. By the way, as the Post notes, someone has hacked the coalition's blog. But there's a temporary site up and running, and the flyersrights.org site is also up with background on CAPBOR.
U.S. PIRG Video Blog: Air Passengers' Bill of Rights
We're excited to announce the first of our occasional U.S. PIRG video consumer blogs. Episode 1: An interview with Kate Hanni of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights, who explains what passengers should know about tarmac strandings and what to do if stranded. We go through the items -- from diapers to water purification tablets to emergency phone numbers -- in the coalition's Stranded Passenger Emergency Kit. Click on the Youtube picture to watch the video. (It's a little long, I know, but it's our first! Thanks to my producer/cameraman, U.S. PIRG administrative director Rick Trilsch.)
New Youtube video explains airline passenger rights issues
Check out a new Airline Passenger Bill of Rights video up at Youtube. On that page, you can also see other Airline Passenger Rights videos. Contact your Representative and Senators and urge them to improve the modest passenger rights language that's been included in FAA Reauthorization legislation on its way to the House and Senate floors. The bills need specific language added to them that would grant passengers an explicit right to deplane after being held prisoner on the tarmac three hours or more! For more information and to sign a petition, go to flyersrights.org.
Yesterday, the House Transportation Committee moved a modest airline passenger rights proposal as part of its FAA reauthorization bill, HR 2881. With passenger rights bills now going to the floor in both the House and the Senate, we have a chance to actually pass a law this year. Here's a cautious but optimistic statement from House champion Mike Thompson (D-CA) and Kate Hanni, spokeswoman for the Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights. Both bills need to be upgraded to guarantee enforceable rights and to make it clear that after three hours of being stuck on a plane stuck on the runway, you have a right to get off. But this is the closest to takeoff we've ever been.
Air passenger advocate joined by Chairman Costello on radio
You can listen to a radio interview from yesterday with Kate Hanni of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights here at the Paul Harris Show on KMOX radio in St. Louis. During the show, House Aviation Subcommittee Chair Jerry Costello (D-IL) calls in with the good news that the committee is working on airline passenger rights language as part of its pending consideration of FAA reauthorization. Kate's been a full-time working musician at times; the show opens with her current band's parody of an old Animals' hit: "We Gotta Get Out Of This Plane." Check it out. And, don't forget, you can call Kate with your airline horror story. Enter this number into your cell phone directory! 877-FLYERS-6.
We were held on the ground for 4 and 1/2 hours by US AIR in Philadelphia last August, with faulty air and/or no air at all, cabin temperatures of 90 -- 93 degrees measured by some passenger's watch function, given only 3 oz of water in paper cups during the entire ordeal while watching the first class passengers getting bottled water, with crying babies and passengers, people fainting and begging to be taken off due to health problems, with most of crew disappearing after just a few hours and remaining crew threatening the sweating passengers who protested this in human treatment.
After 4 hours, we were forced to file into a roped off area of the terminal for another 3 hours with threats of being expelled from the flight should we leave. One lady who protested privately at the service desk was berated and threatened loudly in front of gathered passengers in the holding area, frightening all of the elderly. Those who asked were also told no other flights were available on other airlines, and that US AIR could only route us to alternate cities the next morning, causing us to miss the whole first day of an European tour, our hotel reservation in Rome to be cancelled due to "no show," and ruining the beginning of an expensive European tour. For this treatment, some were offered a $250 voucher when the actual peroration should have been around $1,000 or more. Calls to the Department of Transportation were not returned, nor even acknowledged on their Website. What a sham government regulation has become under "deregulation."
You can now contact Kate and the coalition at their tollfree number to tell your stranded passenger story: 1-877-flyers6 or 1-877-359-3776 or on the web at www.flyersrights.org. Flyers, make a note of this number and weblink.
"Passengers have no rights once they enter an aircraft, incredibly, prisoners of war have more rights than passengers on a commercial airliner," said Kate Hanni, a stranded American Airlines passenger and founder of the Coalition for An Airline Passenger Bill of Rights (CAPBOR). [Kate is at left holding United's "award," the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate] "Our report card gives three major airlines an F for their treatment of passengers, and that's why we're urging Congress to enact a real Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights," added Hanni. At right top is Jennifer Shirkani, a business traveler from New Hampshire who spoke of the long delays she routinely endures.
At right center is Cathy Ray of Arkansas, stranded on American on December 29th in Austin, Texas., who said "Flight attendants have a union, pilots have a union, but passengers have no union to represent them. The coalition is our union and we intend to force the government to stop the madness." At left center, the coalition was joined by former airline customer service supervisor Cindy Bouchard. Among the highlights of the report card were its documentation that government data do not cover delays faced by passengers on diverted or stranded flights: For example, according to the most recent government data, only 36 planes were held on the tarmac for 5 hours or more in 2006.
Data include only extended taxi-outs: That number only includes extended taxi-outs of planes holding on the tarmac at their initial airports that eventually took off.
No cancellations: Those DOT data calculations do not include events such as the Valentine's Day 2007 Jet Blue events at JFK, where 10 planes were held more than 4 hours, then cancelled.
No Diversions: Those DOT data do not include the 101 American Airlines and American Eagle planes from California that were diverted to Austin and other points, then sat on the tarmac for at least 4 hours on December 29th, 2007.
So, while the DOT reports that American had 1,701 (of a total of 16,186 total diversions), it fails to report that at least 101 of those 1701 involved extended tarmac delays.
Much of the report card data analysis was done by Mark Mogel of Pennsylvania, the coalition's volunteer research director, pictured at right bottom. As a result of deficiencies in the DOT reporting, the Coalition finds that airlines have been able to make the misleading claim that strandings and extended-on-the-tarmac confinements are extremely rare. In the last six months alone, the Coalition estimates -- based on press and passenger reports -- that at least 10 separate Diversion and Cancellation incidents involving 8 airlines, 135 planes and the stranding of thousands of passengers have occurred that would not be or (in the case of December 2006 incidents) have not been included in DOT data calculations.
The Coalition also finds that the airlines often leave passengers in unhygienic conditions during any of these long tarmac delays and deny them adequate food, potable water or access to medicines. The coalition was joined by attorney Paul Hudson, at left bottom, the longtime director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project (ACAP. The full press release appears below the jump:
For Immediate Release: Wednesday, June 13th, 9:30 AM
Contact: Kate Hanni—707-337-0328
Paul Hudson – 410-940-8934
Passenger Rights Coalition Issues Airline Strandings Report Card
Three Airlines Get Failing Grades (American, United, US Air)
-- Group Announces New Toll Free Number For Passenger Complaints –
Washington, DC-- Advocates for an airline passenger bill of rights today announced that American, United and US Air had all failed the group’s first Strandings Report Card, based on the total number of flights subject to excessive delays and strandings and other factors -- including the lack of food and "putridness" factor on the delayed planes -- in their first report card ranking airline treatment of stranded passengers. The group also announced a new toll-free (1-877-flyers6 or 1-877-359-3776) hotline for passenger complaints.
"Passengers have no rights once they enter an aircraft, incredibly, prisoners of war have more rights than passengers on a commercial airliner," said Kate Hanni, a stranded American Airlines passenger and founder of the Coalition for An Airline Passenger Bill of Rights (CAPBOR). "Our report card gives three major airlines an F for their treatment of passengers, and that’s why we’re urging Congress to enact a real Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights."
On May 16, the Senate Commerce Committee approved a Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill, S. 1300, that included passenger rights language sponsored by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Action now shifts to the House Transportation Committee where an FAA reauthorization could be considered as early as next week, noted Hanni. The group supports passenger rights legislation, HR 1303, introduced by Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA).
Key elements of the coalition’s passenger bill of rights platform include the following: a procedure for deplaning people stranded on the tarmac for 3 hours or more; providing essential needs for passengers during any onboard delay, truthful reporting of flight delays and cancellations and that bags be returned within 24 hours.
"The government wouldn’t let a cruise ship go to sea without lifeboats," fellow stranded passenger Cathy Ray pointed out. "Flight attendants have a union, pilots have a union, but passengers have no union to represent them. The coalition is our union and we intend to force the government to stop the madness."
Among the highlights of the group’s first Strandings Report Card:
-- The Department of Transportation’s report that only 36 delays of more than 5 hours occurred in 2006 fails to include extended delays on diverted or cancelled flights.
-- No cancellations included: Those DOT data calculations do not include events such as the Valentine’s Day 2007 Jet Blue events at JFK, where 10 planes were held more than 5 hours, then cancelled.
-- No Diversions included: Those DOT data do not include the 101 American Airlines and American Eagle planes from California that were diverted to Austin and other points, then sat on the tarmac for at least 5 hours on December 29th, 2007.
-- For a combination of their total of number of extended delays, cancellations, and diversions, along with their failure to treat passengers humanely – subjecting them to putrid conditions, no potable water and little food, the report card gave three airlines (American, United, and US Air) a failing grade.
The group also announced several awards for worst practices, including the following
-- Its "When You're On The Ground They Treat You Like Dirt" Award to American Airlines, for providing no food, having the most known strandings, most known crisis mismanagement, high "Time-on-the-Tarmac statistics and the most negative report card score -- 4.7.
-- Its "Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award" to United after a crew reportedly left passengers sitting in Syndey, Australia on a plane,
-- Its "Take The Money And Run Awards," to United Express – Operated by SkyWest, for abandoning diverted passengers in Cheyenne, Wyoming and to both United Express -- Operated by Trans States Airlines and American Connection -- Operated by Trans States Airlines, for similarly abandoning diverted passengers in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.
"The performance of the airlines coupled with illusory or false promises and customer service plans shows why passenger rights legislation is essential" said Paul Hudson, longtime executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project. "The fact that there is a wide divergence in airline performance regarding strandings also proves that mandating higher quality service will not raise ticket prices or put airlines out of business."
The group was joined at its event by Cindy Bouchard, a former US Airways airline customer service supervisor, who said that "The Coalition is absolutely correct in its assertion that a legislated passengers’ bill of rights is necessary, and now!"
"We’re pleased that the Senate has taken the first steps toward enacting a Passenger Bill of Rights,” concluded Hanni," Now it is up to the House to do its part to make sure that airline passengers are treated like people, not hostages."
-30-
The non-profit Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights was formed by hundreds of passengers who were stranded on several American Airlines planes for up to 9 hours at Austin International Airport, December 2006. It now has over 15,000 supporters on its petition for a passenger bill of rights. Its website is www.flyersrights.org
The non-profit Aviation Consumer Action Project (ACAP) has represented airline consumers since 1971.
Our colleagues at the Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights -- an all-volunteer group sparked by the shared experience of hours on the tarmac December 29th in putrid planes with no food, no water and overflowing toilets -- are in Washington to lobby Congress and release a report card ranking the airlines. Watch for an update later today. See more at www.flyersrights.org.
On Wednesday, the Senate Commerce Committee is expected to take the first steps toward establishing an Airline Passenger Bill of Rights, when it includes a version of legislation introduced by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) in the FAA Reauthorization package. Joe Sharkey's column in today's New York Times -- Stuck on the Runway, Thinking Rebellious Thoughts -- details the stories of some of the passengers on American 556, and points out that:
There are no official numbers, but anecdotal evidence is persuasive. At least half a dozen of these torture fests have been well documented in the last five months, involving various airlines.
According to recent testimony by Kate Hanni, director of the Coalition for an Airline Passenger Bill of Rights (flyersrights.org), the number of diverted and stranded flights is much, much higher than what the government admits to.
According to Terry Maxon's story Fight for flier rights refuels in today's Dallas Morning News, American Airlines announced after its December 29th tarmac grounding fiasco that it would adopt a no "more than four hours" trapped on the runway rule but that since this hadn't happened in 80 years, that the rule "may never be used again."
In fact, it took less than four months for the Fort Worth-based carrier and its customers to suffer through similar problems.
Not only that, the rule turns out be only a guideline, so it was ignored. That's why we're working with the Coalition for an Airline Passenger Bill of Rights to ensure that the Congress gives consumers real protection.
Yesterday's airline passenger rights mock strand-in on the mall organized by the PIRG-backed 
industry. A long tent was outfitted to resemble the interior of an airline, and wings were drawn on its exterior in duct tape. She offered long-shot invitations to members of Congress to experience confinement, replete with smelly portable toilets Ms. Hanni and fellow volunteers had rounded up. For the record, American said Flight 1348's toilets never overflowed.
That's Kate, inside the mock plane with reform supporter and U.S. Rep. Ron Klein (D-FL). 
Next photo: Here are the media hordes gathering for the news conference. CNN and one other outlet even brought satellite trucks for live remotes. In the orange hat is coalition research and props director Mark Mogel, who designed and built the plane. Next, on right, here's a shot of me addressing the crowd. 
Finally, at the very bottom, that's passenger rights supporter and new U.S. Rep. John Hall (D-NY). Hall is a longtime environmental and anti-nuclear activist, and as most of you know, also a rock star as 
There's a nice opener in Monday's Washington Post for Wednesday's airline passenger strand-in event on the mall Wednesday. The story by Del Quentin Wilber is called 
Check out a new 
Today, the 
, who said "Flight attendants have a union, pilots have a union, but passengers have no union to represent them. The coalition is our union and we intend to force the government to stop the madness." At left center, the coalition was joined by former airline customer service supervisor Cindy Bouchard.
Among the highlights of the report card were its documentation that government data do not cover delays faced by passengers on diverted or stranded flights: For example, according to the most recent government data, only 36 planes were held on the tarmac for 5 hours or more in 2006.
As a result of deficiencies in the DOT reporting, the Coalition finds that airlines have been able to make the misleading claim that strandings and extended-on-the-tarmac confinements are extremely rare. In the last six months alone, the Coalition estimates -- based on press and passenger reports -- that at least 10 separate Diversion and Cancellation incidents involving 8 airlines, 135 planes and the stranding of thousands of passengers have occurred that would not be or (in the case of December 2006 incidents) have not been included in DOT data calculations. 
The coalition was joined by attorney Paul Hudson, at left bottom, the longtime director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project (ACAP. The full press release appears below the jump: