Passenger rights was an issue for the airlines to lose. And they have because they have failed to come up with a solution on their own. Despite the fact that being stranded on long-delayed flights is relatively rare, there have been 500 incidents just this year giving the airline passenger rights movement enough traction to actually be within striking distance of a bill.

Airlines have had a decade to deal with the issue since the 1999 stranding of passengers for eight hours at Detroit during a snowstorm. “The airline industry avoided passenger rights legislation at that time by agreeing to a voluntary customer service initiative, which was soon largely cast off in the aftermath of the industry’s troubles following September 11, 2001,” noted the Business Travel Coalition which has scheduled Passenger Rights Stakeholder Hearing: Examining a Market Failure? for September 22 in Washington. “More recently, extended ground delays in Texas and New York in 2006 and 2007, respectively, led to a new round of Congressional hearings and increased calls for passenger rights legislation and a single industry standard regarding extended ground delays. Such legislative prescriptions are currently included in FAA reauthorization bills in the House and in the Senate, allowing passengers to disembark after three hours delay, should a captain decide it is reasonable and safe to do so.”

For its part, the industry has fallen back on its claim that unintended consequences of such legislation will make matters worse. But in fact, the industry has been overtaken by events, squandering the time since lengthy tarmac delays became an issue, and playing into the hands of those they hope to defeat. With years to prove that the flexibility it says is needed to address those strandings actually works, the industry has yet to devise a solution to the enforced captivity of its passengers.

Earlier this week, I asked the Air Transport Association if it could provide examples of when the flexibility they want has helped in such a situation. It did not provide any examples instead falling back on its talking point.

“ATA and its member airlines understand passengers' frustration with long delays,” Spokesperson Elizabeth Merida responded in an email. “Let me first say that long delays such as the recent incident in Rochester are unacceptable and contrary to carrier contingency plans. Although we fully understand these concerns, we continue to believe that a hard-and-fast rule requiring mandatory deplaning of passengers will have substantial, unintended consequences, leading to even more inconvenience for passengers - and ultimately more flight cancellations.”

Of course, ATA is right that those unintended consequences may include ignoring the desires of some passengers to stick it out in an effort to make that wedding, funeral, business appointment or whatever. But it is my guess that the vast majority of passengers would be relieved at the prospect of getting off an aircraft after three hours of sitting trapped in a human mailing tube. BTC suggests now that a recently launched and still-ongoing survey of travel industry professionals indicates that “airlines have run out of public-relations runway. Even their own employees, senior executives and former board members support passenger rights legislation.”

The passenger rights movement is now being supported by columnists across the country outraged at the ExpressJet incident in Rochester, MN last week. Related Story In addition, airports, tired of being blamed, are fighting back when airlines, such as in the recent ExpressJet incident, try to shift the blame to either airports or TSA.

In the industry corner, are MIT Scientists Peter Belobaba and Amy Cohn, who recently published a compelling argument against the pending legislation. Cohn will speak at the BTC hearing. Still Stuck on the Tarmac outlines why a hard-and-fast rule will not work. Their most important reason is the fact that aircraft returning to the terminal lose its place in line, thus extending whatever wait passenger may have faced by forcing passengers to start all over even if they can be re-accommodated on other flights.

Perhaps their most compelling argument suggests actually doing something about why the strandings occurs in the first place – the antiquated air traffic control system. Even so, they offer no solution.

“Fixing the problem will require careful, thorough and thoughtful consideration of creative solutions,” wrote Cohn and Belobabba. “For example, could new runway policies enable aircraft to ‘reserve a spot in line’? (Under this kind of system, planes wouldn't have to move from the gate until they're actually ready to take off.) Could new airport facility configurations enable the jockeying of aircraft during snowstorms to ensure that passengers have a gate to de-board at once they've landed? How might we improve the capacity of the national airspace itself, reducing the congestion that causes the majority of non-weather-related delays? These are not easy questions, but managing aviation is not an easy task.”

Instead, they suggest quick fix solutions, such as those provided in the legislation, should be substituted for a “real solution.” The problem is no one has come up with any solution in the years since the issue first came to light. The fact that this is a continuing problem has only given strength to legislation favored by advocates anxious to fill the vacuum left by industry inaction.

This, coupled with the growing passenger sentiment that airlines care little about customer service and proving it by nickel and diming them to death, has only created increased calls for legislation, this time to curb fees that have provided a lifeline for the industry. The fact is, the industry has played into the hands of critics and set the stage for full-blown the re-regulation bandied about in the halls of Congress.

I previously suggested that the appetite for such action would probably be limited to the financial and banking industries, but I think the steady drumbeat of negative stories surrounding the airline industry has increased the appetite for re-regulation a thousand fold. The questions raised now go far beyond simply stranding people on the tarmac. They go to the heart of the current business model, especially questions surrounding the relationships between majors and regionals wrought by the Colgan accident earlier this year. That, alone, has prompted action on how airlines treat their employees, flight and duty time and now passenger service as in the ExpressJet/Continental case. It is also questioning alliances, which, of course impact both international as well as domestic relationships.

Congress is saying that if airlines want to boast of the value of seamless service, they better well have it. If they boast of a single level of safety, major’s better take responsibility for the regional counterparts.

Industry on Trial?
These safety and service issues will be the focus of BTC’s September 22 hearing although it is highly unlikely that solutions will result.

BTC was careful to praise those carriers that have kept to their promises on the stranding issue. “Some low-cost and major network carriers have taken positive, but limited steps to address the extended ground delay problem,” it said. “However, 10 years later, airline passengers, consumer groups led by FlyersRights.org, travel industry professionals and the organizations that represent them such as the American Society of Travel Agents and the National Business Travel Association have said ‘game-over, lights-out;’ it’s time for legislation and a single industry standard…It is indeed sad commentary on airline industry leadership that the situation has had to come to this.”

It also pointed to similar legislation in Europe noting that the dire consequences predicted there did not come to pass. “The sky, it turns out, did not fall in Europe,” it said. “An EU-based travel management company CEO recently told BTC, ‘The EU regulations on flight cancellations and delays were expected to increase costs without much benefit to passengers. However, it seems not to have had that result. My experience is that vague reasons for cancellations have disappeared, and that the airlines will re-route and provide overnight accommodations when technical reasons prohibit them from flying. Compensation for cancellations is paid without argument.’”

BTC Executive Director Kevin Mitchell said that the industry’s failure to address these issues “despite Congressional pressure and unfavorable press coverage” is illustrative of a market failure.

"That extended ground delays are statistically insignificant, misses the point," he says. “This is first and foremost a health and safety issue,” he said. “We spend hundreds of millions of dollars endeavoring to incrementally improve upon aircraft accident statistics. Why should passengers expect and accept less with respect to the nearly 500 incidents during the first six months of 2009 in which passengers spent greater than three hours on planes?

Held at the Hart Senate Office Building, the hearing seems to put the industry on trial gathering witnesses and questioners to the debate. The Air Transport Association and its member airlines have been invited to participate in the hearing.

“In addition to audience members attending the hearing, stakeholders will comprise Witnesses and Questioners,” said BTC. “Witness panels will include passengers and airline, airport and association executives as well as functional-area experts from acadème and industry. Witnesses will present 5-minute statements. After all statements have been presented, Questioners will address their queries to each of the Witnesses. Questioners will include corporate travel managers, airport executives and functional area experts as well as members of the press, to provide an extra measure of impartiality. The Stakeholder Hearing will also have a roundtable discussion among Members of the House and Senate interested in this issue moderated by a respected member of the press including:
• Robert L. Crandall, Former Chairman and CEO, American Airlines
• Dr. Amy Cohn, Associate Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan
• Dr. Frederick J Foreman, Chief Executive Officer, Mathematical Modeling, Inc.
• Dr. Shawn Obrien, Airline Customer
• Kate Hanni, Executive Director, FlyersRights.org
• John Hughes, Aviation Reporter, Bloomberg News
• Kevin Mitchell, Chair, Business Travel Coalition
• Jennifer Michels, Deputy Editor, Aviation Daily
• Colin Tooze, Vice President, Government Affairs, American Society of Travel Agents
• William McGee, Author, Consumer Reports
• Jay Boehmer, Senior Editor, Business Travel News
• Leslie Yourra, Airline Customer
• Jerome Greer Chandler, Aviation Journalist
• Link Christin, Airline Customer


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