While Airline Passengers Burn, DOT/FAA Fiddles, According to National Airline Passenger Groups

WASHINGTON, June 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- While the national air transportation system is burning with delays (1 in 4 flights) and cancellations (1 in 20 flights) and strandings (8 major incidents in past 6 months), and with passenger complaints rising to new heights, the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) appear to be "fiddling", say two national airline passenger groups, the Aviation Consumer Action Project (ACAP) and the Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights (CAPBOR) * http://strandedpassengers.blogspot.com/ * http://www.flyersrights.com

Passenger complaints are now running over 70% higher in 2007 than 2006, according to DOT statistics. The top three complaints are flight delays and cancellations, mishandled baggage, customer service and ticketing problems. Most recent months show big increases in customer complaints to DOT (76% increase year over year April 2007 to April 2006, over 80% for March and 50% for February).

One in four flights are now delayed over 15 minutes, with extreme weather responsible for only 5% of delays, while according to DOT statistics, airline responsibility causes and air traffic congestion are the major delay reasons. However, as has been pointed out in DOT Inspector General reports and by CAPBOR congressional testimony, DOT statistics on delays exclude cancelled flights, most strandings and flight diversions, thereby greatly underreporting the problem. See US DOT web site Air Travel Consumer Reports for 2007, Consumer Complaint tables, http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/ http://www.bts.gov/ ; Testimonies of Kate Hanni and DOT Inspector General Scovil before the House Aviation Subcommittee April 19th and Senate Commerce Committee April 11th.

On May 9th, five national consumer organizations wrote to DOT Secretary Mary Peters and FAA Administrator Marion Blakey, requesting a meeting regarding ways to prevent lengthy confinements in airliners on the tarmac of up to 10 hours that have victimized tens of thousands of airline passengers over the past year, including most of CAPBOR's 15,000 member supporters. The organizations besides ACAP and CAPBOR included the Consumer Federation of America, Public Citizen, and US PIRGs, national consumer organizations with millions of members. See http://strandedpassengers.blogspot.com/

After several follow-up phone calls and written communications, however, there has been no response according to Paul Hudson, Executive Director of ACAP. "It seems both Secretary Peters and FAA Administrator Blakey are traveling constantly or are too busy to meet with airline passenger consumer organizations."

"This is unfortunate as the air transportation system is careening toward crisis and gridlock this summer. The DOT has scheduled meetings with the airline representatives that exclude consumer representatives however," noted Mr. Hudson, a long time air traveler rights advocate and public member of the FAA Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee and the TSA Aviation Security Advisory Committee.

Kate Hanni, spokesperson and founder of CAPBOR, an organization founded in January 2007 of stranded airline passengers that has quickly grown to over 15,000 members, stated, "I can't understand the head-in-the-sand attitude of DOT/FAA toward airline passengers' interests. Passengers with increasing frequency are being stranded and imprisoned on parked airliners on the tarmac and prohibited from exiting the airplanes. Airline insiders say this practice is being used to avoid airline obligations and expenses long associated with mass flight delays and cancellations and to prevent passengers from obtaining alternate transportation (known in the industry as 'passenger migration'). Secretary Peters and Administrator Blakey are supposed to protect airline passengers from such deceptive, unfair and unsafe practices, but so far they seem to want to avoid that responsibility if at all possible."

In April, Mr. Hudson and Ms. Hanni testified on the need for airline passenger rights legislation before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and the House Aviation Subcommittee. Their testimonies are available on the committee web sites.

Last week the largest flight attendants union, the 55,000-member Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA-AFL) joined in support of strong airline passenger rights legislation.

On June 5th, the Wall Street Journal reported that when airlines break customer service rules they are rarely penalized by DOT and that low fines are usually waived or reduced. WSJ, 6/5/07, p. D1. The US DOT has exclusive government regulatory authority to prohibit and punish deceptive or unfair airline practices. The FAA is charged with ensuring that airlines operate in a safe and convenient manner, and operates the nation's air and ground traffic control systems.