The successful implementation last year for airlines to use military airspace along the East Coast to expand the airspace – the so-called Holiday Express Lanes – have been expanded this holiday season and, at the same time, the Department of Transportation issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking requiring airlines to develop contingency plans for handling passengers during long tarmac delays. The two announcements came as President George W. Bush addressed Department of Transportation employees last week.
The Holiday Express Lanes will go beyond the use of military airspace along the Eastern Seaboard to include the Midwest, the Southwest, and the West Coast, including the skies over Phoenix and Los Angeles. The initiatives also include working with the FAA, the TSA, and the airlines to make more staff available to speed check-in and boarding, and to help passengers affected by cancellations and delays.
Bush also rolled out several lame duck initiatives including a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to enhance passenger protections long sought by the Coalition for a Passengers Bill of Rights.
“We have just completed new regulations that provide increased protection for consumers,” he said, adding they are expected to be in place for this holiday period. “These include measures that will require airlines to provide greater compensation for lost bags, as well as tougher penalties when airlines fail to notify travelers of hidden fees. During my time in office, or our time in office, we have put regulations in place to make airlines more accountable for the way they treat passengers,” said President Bush. “In other words, we have done this kind of regulatory regime before -- notably doubling the fine airlines pay for bumping travelers off of overbooked flights. Our message is: We will hold you to account. The consumers will hold you to account, but we have a responsibility in government, as well, to help our air travelers.”
The NPRM, announced last week, finally addresses the problem of long tarmac delays including the adoption of recommendations of its National Task Force to Develop Model Contingency Plans to Deal with Lengthy On-Board Ground Delays requiring air carriers to adopt contingency plans for lengthy tarmac delays. Related Story It also requires air carriers to respond to consumer problems and considers flights that are chronically late to be unfair and deceptive and in violation of 49 U.S.C. §41712. Other provisions include requiring air carriers to publish information on flight delays on their websites in addition to auditing their own compliance with the consumer service plan.
While applauding the holiday efforts, industry again denounced the President’s announcement that he is determined to proceed with slot auctions at New York before he leaves office. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) introduced legislation which is now part of the economic stimulus package, banning such auctions. Under the proposed auction regime, airlines would pick half of the slots to be auctioned and the government would choose the other half. However, this will likely mean the end of service to many medium-sized cities now served by regional airlines. Transportation officials said the auctions at the three airports could raise about $150 million to be used to expand runways and make other improvements.
Such a contribution does little to address what is really needed, said industry observers, who echoed Schumer who said slot auctions “perpetuates half-measures rather than making real change” meaning accelerating the deployment of NextGen.
“At the same time, the president reiterated his intention to have flight slots sold by auction at the three largest airports in the New York region before he leaves office in January, a move that the plan’s opponents are trying to block in the courts and in Congress,” said the Air Transport Association, which recently published a forecast saying holiday travel will be down 10 percent this year. Even so, it cautioned that seats for those who are bumped or who miss flights will be harder to come by given the capacity cuts.
The initiatives came at a time when three new runways were opened at Chicago, Washington Dulles and Seattle at a cost of $643 million in Airport Improvement Program funding alone, dwarfing the projected $150 million in earnings slot auctions would yield.
Secretary Mary Peters said the new runways would allow for an additional 330,000 take-offs and landings each year. She added that the runways, which were built with $643 million in federal airport improvement program funds, also will help reduce delays at the three airports and in other communities served by the facilities. Secretary Peters said the runways are the 12th, 13th and 14th facilities opened since December of 2001. She added that over the past eight years the federal government has invested over $50 billion in new runway and taxiway projects, new airport facilities and new air traffic control technology.