Southpark the adult cartoon show that is so popular in the US has done an entire episode on "purgatory" that time spent on a plane on the tarmac without goods or services.
We will be editing the video to include only the pertinent parts of this episode and beeping out the inappropriate for all audiences language. But until then you can tune in any night this week and right at minute 9 you'll see the impact we've made on Southpark!
Kate
Friday, October 9, 2009
"Don't drink the water"
October 12, 2009
Contact:
Kate Hanni
(707) 337-0328
kate@flyersrights.com
For Immediate Release
Flyersrights.org Plea to Airline Passengers: “Don’t Drink the Water!”
Consumer Advocacy Group Disappointed in Latest EPA Guidelines for Providing Safe Drinking Water Aboard Airplanes
Napa, CA (October 12, 2009) – Flyersrights.org, the national advocacy group for airline passengers in the United States, has gone on record by stating that last week’s finalized EPA guidelines regarding airline drinking water are insufficient and basically allow the airlines to operate as they please without regard to passenger health and safety.
The new EPA guidelines, which are based on a 2004 study in which 15% of airliners tested positive for coliform, call for mandatory testing every five years. In addition, the EPA is only required to do random inspections on airplane water systems and the new rules don’t commence for another 18 months.
Kate Hanni, founder and president of Flyersrights.org does not think the new rules adequately address passenger health concerns.
“Testing water every five years for coliform is simply unacceptable. The flying public trusts the airlines to provide it with basic needs such as potable, hygienic water -and the airlines are failing the task. Now the government has attempted to regulate, yet has clearly bowed down to the airlines with extremely lax new rules that do not address the issue. Our recommendation to passengers is that they do not drink water on board an airplane unless it is bottled, do not brush teeth with bathroom tap water and disinfect further after washing hands in airplane bathrooms”, said Hanni.
Paul Ziots, a passenger who was stranded on the tarmac in Austin in 2006 for almost nine hours, knows the dangers of airplane tap water all too well.
“All we had on board the aircraft was tap water. I became ill with intestinal problems, and had to put myself up for two nights in an airport hotel, at my own expense, before aborting my trip and flying home”, he states.
Flyersrights.org was formed in 2007 by several passengers who were stranded for nine hours on the tarmac in Austin, Texas. The organization advocates for passengers’ rights, including passage of the Passenger’s Bill of Rights currently being debated in Congress. The organization currently has 27,000 members nationwide. For more information, visit www.flyersrights.org or call the hotline at 1-877-FLYERS6.
###
Contact:
Kate Hanni
(707) 337-0328
kate@flyersrights.com
For Immediate Release
Flyersrights.org Plea to Airline Passengers: “Don’t Drink the Water!”
Consumer Advocacy Group Disappointed in Latest EPA Guidelines for Providing Safe Drinking Water Aboard Airplanes
Napa, CA (October 12, 2009) – Flyersrights.org, the national advocacy group for airline passengers in the United States, has gone on record by stating that last week’s finalized EPA guidelines regarding airline drinking water are insufficient and basically allow the airlines to operate as they please without regard to passenger health and safety.
The new EPA guidelines, which are based on a 2004 study in which 15% of airliners tested positive for coliform, call for mandatory testing every five years. In addition, the EPA is only required to do random inspections on airplane water systems and the new rules don’t commence for another 18 months.
Kate Hanni, founder and president of Flyersrights.org does not think the new rules adequately address passenger health concerns.
“Testing water every five years for coliform is simply unacceptable. The flying public trusts the airlines to provide it with basic needs such as potable, hygienic water -and the airlines are failing the task. Now the government has attempted to regulate, yet has clearly bowed down to the airlines with extremely lax new rules that do not address the issue. Our recommendation to passengers is that they do not drink water on board an airplane unless it is bottled, do not brush teeth with bathroom tap water and disinfect further after washing hands in airplane bathrooms”, said Hanni.
Paul Ziots, a passenger who was stranded on the tarmac in Austin in 2006 for almost nine hours, knows the dangers of airplane tap water all too well.
“All we had on board the aircraft was tap water. I became ill with intestinal problems, and had to put myself up for two nights in an airport hotel, at my own expense, before aborting my trip and flying home”, he states.
Flyersrights.org was formed in 2007 by several passengers who were stranded for nine hours on the tarmac in Austin, Texas. The organization advocates for passengers’ rights, including passage of the Passenger’s Bill of Rights currently being debated in Congress. The organization currently has 27,000 members nationwide. For more information, visit www.flyersrights.org or call the hotline at 1-877-FLYERS6.
###
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Fliers on delayed planes get more support
By Gary Stoller, USA TODAY
Airlines are losing another ally in their fight to stop Congress from passing a law that would allow passengers to get off planes delayed at least three hours on airport tarmacs.
The Business Travel Coalition, a group that represents about 300 corporate travel departments, is coming out today in support of such a law after having opposed congressional action.
The coalition's shift comes after it surveyed 649 corporate travel departments, travel agents and business travelers and found that more than 90% of travel departments — and about 80% of travel agents and business travelers — say passengers should have the option to get off flights delayed three hours or longer.
It also follows a similar shift in positions by two other business travel groups — the National Business Travel Association and the American Society of Travel Agents. And it comes as Congress is poised this fall to vote on so-called passenger rights legislation that would force the airlines to give passengers stuck on flights options.
The survey results "reveal a striking change in thinking in the mainstream business community about the need for congressional intervention," says Kevin Mitchell, the coalition's chairman.
"Some of the largest corporations on the planet, for whom government involvement in free markets is anathema, overwhelmingly have concluded that legislation is the best choice after 10 years of shattered promises of self-policing by airlines," he says.
Airlines don't want legislation
Although rare, more than 200,000 domestic passengers have been stuck on more than 3,000 planes for three hours or more waiting to take off or taxi to a gate since January 2007, a USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Transportation Department data has found.
In June, 278 flights waited on the tarmac for at least three hours, the most recent numbers from the department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics show.
The issue has attracted greater attention after an incident last month in which 51 passengers were stuck overnight on a delayed Continental Express flight at the Rochester, Minn., airport. The incident, in which passengers complained of a smelly toilet and not having food or drink, also has drawn greater attention to the legislation.
The House and Senate must decide on final wording of any passenger-rights provisions that now are in a bill to reauthorize and fund the Federal Aviation Administration.
A Senate committee voted in July to require airlines to let people off planes delayed for more than three hours. The House earlier had passed a less specific version that requires each airline to submit to the Department of Transportation a plan to let passengers off.
The Air Transport Association, which represents major U.S. airlines, says long delays "are unacceptable," and it understands why they frustrate passengers. But, the group says, it opposes legislation that would force airlines to return planes to terminals after a set time to let off passengers.
Airlines have established "contingency plans" to deal with long tarmac delays and can handle the problems themselves without government intervention, says David Castelveter, the group's vice president.
"We continue to believe that a hard-and-fast mandatory rule for deplaning passengers will have substantial unintended consequences, leading to even more inconvenience for passengers and, ultimately, more flight cancellations," Castelveter says.
Airlines have spent a lot of money to improve service, he says, "including the use of new technology, the purchase of the most modern aircraft and facility improvement projects."
But passenger-rights groups — and now business groups — are saying they cannot count on the airlines to solve the delays, and Congress must step in and force the airlines to let passengers off planes.
Congress must set 'clear standard'
Kate Hanni of FlyersRights.org says three should be the maximum number of hours before a passenger is allowed off a plane, but many members of her group wonder if the limit should be one or two hours.
"Why in the USA do we even have to ask for a three-hour limit on the ground in a sealed, hot, sweaty metal tube?" she asks. "We thought this country was founded on freedom — freedom to move, freedom to breathe, freedom to eat and drink and have hygienic toilet facilities."
The Business Travel Coalition, which for years has testified at congressional hearings in support of airlines remedying the tarmac-delay problem on their own, now agrees with FlyersRights.org. The two groups have scheduled a Sept. 22 conference in Washington to discuss the issue.
About 80% of the respondents to the coalition's survey, many of whom handle travel for Fortune 500 firms, said the airlines haven't made a compelling case against the legislation.
It was the Aug. 7 delay in Rochester, in which the passengers were held on the Continental Express jet for 5½ hours, that turned the National Business Travel Association around. The association, which represents about 4,200 corporate travel departments and suppliers, had previously taken the position that the airlines should solve the problem.
In July, the American Society of Travel Agents reversed course and urged Congress to act "in the face of continuing delays and the evident lack of concrete efforts on the part of airlines to create a meaningful solution."
Paul Ruden, the society's senior vice president, was on a Transportation Department task force last year that recommended airlines establish time limits at each airport for letting passengers off planes.
But that hasn't worked, he says, and Congress now needs to set "a clear standard for the airlines to follow."
Airlines are losing another ally in their fight to stop Congress from passing a law that would allow passengers to get off planes delayed at least three hours on airport tarmacs.
The Business Travel Coalition, a group that represents about 300 corporate travel departments, is coming out today in support of such a law after having opposed congressional action.
The coalition's shift comes after it surveyed 649 corporate travel departments, travel agents and business travelers and found that more than 90% of travel departments — and about 80% of travel agents and business travelers — say passengers should have the option to get off flights delayed three hours or longer.
It also follows a similar shift in positions by two other business travel groups — the National Business Travel Association and the American Society of Travel Agents. And it comes as Congress is poised this fall to vote on so-called passenger rights legislation that would force the airlines to give passengers stuck on flights options.
The survey results "reveal a striking change in thinking in the mainstream business community about the need for congressional intervention," says Kevin Mitchell, the coalition's chairman.
"Some of the largest corporations on the planet, for whom government involvement in free markets is anathema, overwhelmingly have concluded that legislation is the best choice after 10 years of shattered promises of self-policing by airlines," he says.
Airlines don't want legislation
Although rare, more than 200,000 domestic passengers have been stuck on more than 3,000 planes for three hours or more waiting to take off or taxi to a gate since January 2007, a USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Transportation Department data has found.
In June, 278 flights waited on the tarmac for at least three hours, the most recent numbers from the department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics show.
The issue has attracted greater attention after an incident last month in which 51 passengers were stuck overnight on a delayed Continental Express flight at the Rochester, Minn., airport. The incident, in which passengers complained of a smelly toilet and not having food or drink, also has drawn greater attention to the legislation.
The House and Senate must decide on final wording of any passenger-rights provisions that now are in a bill to reauthorize and fund the Federal Aviation Administration.
A Senate committee voted in July to require airlines to let people off planes delayed for more than three hours. The House earlier had passed a less specific version that requires each airline to submit to the Department of Transportation a plan to let passengers off.
The Air Transport Association, which represents major U.S. airlines, says long delays "are unacceptable," and it understands why they frustrate passengers. But, the group says, it opposes legislation that would force airlines to return planes to terminals after a set time to let off passengers.
Airlines have established "contingency plans" to deal with long tarmac delays and can handle the problems themselves without government intervention, says David Castelveter, the group's vice president.
"We continue to believe that a hard-and-fast mandatory rule for deplaning passengers will have substantial unintended consequences, leading to even more inconvenience for passengers and, ultimately, more flight cancellations," Castelveter says.
Airlines have spent a lot of money to improve service, he says, "including the use of new technology, the purchase of the most modern aircraft and facility improvement projects."
But passenger-rights groups — and now business groups — are saying they cannot count on the airlines to solve the delays, and Congress must step in and force the airlines to let passengers off planes.
Congress must set 'clear standard'
Kate Hanni of FlyersRights.org says three should be the maximum number of hours before a passenger is allowed off a plane, but many members of her group wonder if the limit should be one or two hours.
"Why in the USA do we even have to ask for a three-hour limit on the ground in a sealed, hot, sweaty metal tube?" she asks. "We thought this country was founded on freedom — freedom to move, freedom to breathe, freedom to eat and drink and have hygienic toilet facilities."
The Business Travel Coalition, which for years has testified at congressional hearings in support of airlines remedying the tarmac-delay problem on their own, now agrees with FlyersRights.org. The two groups have scheduled a Sept. 22 conference in Washington to discuss the issue.
About 80% of the respondents to the coalition's survey, many of whom handle travel for Fortune 500 firms, said the airlines haven't made a compelling case against the legislation.
It was the Aug. 7 delay in Rochester, in which the passengers were held on the Continental Express jet for 5½ hours, that turned the National Business Travel Association around. The association, which represents about 4,200 corporate travel departments and suppliers, had previously taken the position that the airlines should solve the problem.
In July, the American Society of Travel Agents reversed course and urged Congress to act "in the face of continuing delays and the evident lack of concrete efforts on the part of airlines to create a meaningful solution."
Paul Ruden, the society's senior vice president, was on a Transportation Department task force last year that recommended airlines establish time limits at each airport for letting passengers off planes.
But that hasn't worked, he says, and Congress now needs to set "a clear standard for the airlines to follow."
Cap on Tarmac Waits Might Get off Ground
TRAVEL
Cap on tarmac waits might get off ground
By Helen Anders
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, September 07, 2009
It's been nearly three years since Kate Hanni sat for more than eight hours in an American Airlines MD-80 parked on the tarmac at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
She's still fuming.
"Every time I think about that plane, I get anxious and nervous," says Hanni, who lives in California's Napa Valley and was flying from San Francisco to Dallas on Dec. 29, 2006, when her plane and 15 others were diverted to Austin because of storms in Dallas.
That much-publicized experience prompted Hanni to launch the Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights, whose primary objective has been legislation limiting the time travelers can be trapped in a grounded airplane. That effort might be about to bear fruit.
The U.S. Senate is considering a bill that would compel planes to unload passengers after three hours on the tarmac. The legislation gained momentum last month when a Continental Airlines regional flight out of Houston, run by ExpressJet, sat for more than five hours in Rochester, Minn.
U.S. Department of Transportation records show that from January to June of this year, 613 planeloads of passengers waited on the tarmac for more than three hours.
The National Business Travelers Association recently reversed its stance that the airlines should solve the problem themselves and is supporting the Senate bill.
"Enough is enough," the group's president, Kevin Maguire, said at the time.
Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, said he agrees that it's unlikely the airlines will act unless Congress forces them to.
"I have testified since 1999 four times against congressional intervention, always saying that the airlines should be able to fix this problem and police themselves," Mitchell said. "The airlines are just not responding." Both this group and the National Business Travelers Association carry the clout of representing corporate travel bookers.
The airlines, represented by the Air Transport Association, oppose any law limiting tarmac waits, saying hard-and-fast rules would result in cancellations and massive stranding of passengers in airports.
Some passenger advocates say the Senate bill doesn't go far enough because it includes exceptions to the three-hour rule, which could be bypassed if a pilot thought he or she had a good chance of getting the plane airborne soon or if unloading passengers would jeopardize safety and security — a subjective call that would be made by the pilot or airline.
Others say the bill won't work because it puts mandates only on the airlines. When planes don't unload passengers, airlines often blame airport management, FAA regulations or Transportation Security Administration and customs policies.
"The airlines can't do it alone," says former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall, who plans to weigh in at a Sept. 22 hearing in Washington on the legislation. "Any solution must involve cooperation among the airlines, airports, the FAA, the TSA and customs." He said he thinks Congress should scrap the legislation and start over.
The Senate bill faces a battle, and not only on the passenger rights front. It is part of massive legislation reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration that also addresses such issues as air traffic control modernization, aircraft maintenance and labor negotiations.
But the recent Minnesota stranding has ratcheted up the rhetoric in favor of passage.
"You can't treat people like cattle on a cattle car," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said.
If the Senate does pass its bill, its wording will have to be reconciled with the House version, which says only that airlines should come up with contingency plans for dealing with tarmac delays. There is no time limit. Both the House and Senate bills would mandate that food, water and adequate restrooms be provided during the delays.
The FAA is operating under a temporary extension of its authorization, and that expires Sept. 30. Congress must either extend that authorization or pass a new bill by that date.
While the legislation is debated, the Department of Transportation is considering enacting its own rule that would require each airline, as part of its contract of carriage (the fine print on the ticket), to set its own limit on tarmac waits. Under the plan, which is still subject to revision, airlines could change those limits as often as they wanted but would face fines up to $27,500 for each transgression. Airlines would be in charge of tracking their own compliance.
Airlines say putting their plans into the contract of carriage could bring a flood of lawsuits. A decision on the rule is expected sometime this fall.
Even if the rule is enacted, Hanni says it would be meaningless because airlines would be policing themselves.
The push for passenger rights was born during one of the worst winter storms in Texas history. As thunderstorms parked over Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Hanni, her husband and their two sons, ages 11 and 21, were aboard one of 16 flights diverted to Austin, 14 of them American.
Most of these planes were back in the air after an hour or two, having found a window of calm air. But four of the American planes stayed parked, one for six hours, two for more than seven hours and one, Hanni's, for eight hours and 23 minutes, according to Austin-Bergstrom records.
Ten passengers whose ultimate destination was Austin were taken off the plane with mobile stairs, but the others were kept aboard in hopes of an imminent departure.
Shortly after 9 p.m., Hanni's flight did go to a gate. Hanni and her family flew to Dallas the next morning and, 57 hours after their journey began, eventually arrived at their destination, Mobile, Ala. By then, Hanni had decided to abandon her job in real estate and go after the airlines. Her nonprofit organization — its Web site is www.flyersrights.org — runs on private donations. She does not take a salary but reimburses herself for her expenses.
The family also filed a class-action suit against American Airlines, claiming false imprisonment. It is still pending in federal court in California. A similar case filed in Arkansas by one of the passengers stuck on another American Airlines plane on Dec. 26, 2006, was dismissed in April after a judge said that although the airline should have acted differently, it broke no laws.
American gave its stranded passengers $500 vouchers after the 2006 strandings. In last month's Minnesota incident, Continental gave passengers refunds and $200 vouchers.
Airlines have given various reasons for long waits. Usually, the airlines have said they were hopeful that planes could soon be on their way. Sometimes, there aren't enough gates available at the airport — or at least enough gates owned by the airline whose plane is stranded. Mobile stairs can be used, but FAA rules say ramp workers, who move those stairs, must stay indoors when lightning is near.
In the recent Minnesota case, ExpressJet said passengers couldn't get off because there were no security agents in the airport. TSA spokeswoman Andrea McCauley said it has no problem with airlines unloading passengers, even after security checkpoints are closed, as long as passengers stay within the secured area.
International flights diverted to airports without customs officers can't unload because the passengers re-entering the United States need to go through customs. That, Crandall said, needs to change.
"Let them off the airplane," he said. "This is common sense."
After the December 2006 incident, American Airlines established a policy to allow passengers to get off if a plane sits on the tarmac for more than four hours, assuming it can be done safely. United has a similar four-hour policy. Continental's policy is to let passengers deplane after three hours, and spokeswoman Julie King said partners such as ExpressJet are supposed to abide by it, but "that process broke down" in the Minnesota incident.
Airlines say their surveys show passengers prefer to wait out a delay rather than get off and risk having to compete for space on another flight.
Department of Transportation statistics show that taxi-out times — tarmac delays involving planes headed for the runway — dropped in 2008, to 1,231 strandings of more than three hours from 1,654 in 2007. But 67 of those were for more than five hours, compared with 45 strandings of more than five hours in 2007.
In the first six months of this year, there were 415 taxi-out delays of more than three hours. (Tarmac waits of diverted flights can't be compared with past years, because those figures were not tracked until last October.)
Airlines say that they're trying to cut down on delays but that a legislated trigger for letting passengers off will only strand travelers inside airports.
Hanni says no rule will work without a limit on tarmac delays. If the House version of the FAA bill emerges, she said, "I would have to oppose it."
handers@statesman.com; 912-2590
Waiting to take off
Tarmac waits for all airlines from 2005 to present for flights that taxied out from the gate and then sat. Diverted planes are not included because they were not tracked until last October.
Year 3+ hours 5+ hours
2005 1,089 27
2006 1,341 37
2007 1,654 45
2008 1,231 67
2009 (to June) 415 10
Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics
Who kept planes waiting
Tarmac waits of more than three hours for the first six months of 2009. These numbers include taxi-outs, taxi-ins, diversions and planes that waited and then had flights canceled:
Airline 3+ hrs % of flights
All Airlines 613 .021
Comair 44 .055
Delta 100 .046
United 72 .038
JetBlue 38 .038
US Airways 62 .030
American 66 .025
ExpressJet 37 .025
Mesa 27 .023
Northwest 30 .020
American Eagle 40 .018
Pinnacle 18 .013
AirTran 16 .011
Continental 16 .011
Frontier 4 .008
Atlantic Southeast 9 .006
Skywest 14 .005
Southwest 20 .001
Hawaiian 0 0
Alaska 0 0
Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics
2009 flights diverted to Austin
Month Diversions Waits of 3+ hours
January 7 0
February 2 0
March 36 3
April 36 1
May 33 4
No tarmac delays exceeded 5 hours.
Source: Austin-Bergstrom International Airport records
Cap on tarmac waits might get off ground
By Helen Anders
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, September 07, 2009
It's been nearly three years since Kate Hanni sat for more than eight hours in an American Airlines MD-80 parked on the tarmac at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
She's still fuming.
"Every time I think about that plane, I get anxious and nervous," says Hanni, who lives in California's Napa Valley and was flying from San Francisco to Dallas on Dec. 29, 2006, when her plane and 15 others were diverted to Austin because of storms in Dallas.
That much-publicized experience prompted Hanni to launch the Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights, whose primary objective has been legislation limiting the time travelers can be trapped in a grounded airplane. That effort might be about to bear fruit.
The U.S. Senate is considering a bill that would compel planes to unload passengers after three hours on the tarmac. The legislation gained momentum last month when a Continental Airlines regional flight out of Houston, run by ExpressJet, sat for more than five hours in Rochester, Minn.
U.S. Department of Transportation records show that from January to June of this year, 613 planeloads of passengers waited on the tarmac for more than three hours.
The National Business Travelers Association recently reversed its stance that the airlines should solve the problem themselves and is supporting the Senate bill.
"Enough is enough," the group's president, Kevin Maguire, said at the time.
Kevin Mitchell, chairman of the Business Travel Coalition, said he agrees that it's unlikely the airlines will act unless Congress forces them to.
"I have testified since 1999 four times against congressional intervention, always saying that the airlines should be able to fix this problem and police themselves," Mitchell said. "The airlines are just not responding." Both this group and the National Business Travelers Association carry the clout of representing corporate travel bookers.
The airlines, represented by the Air Transport Association, oppose any law limiting tarmac waits, saying hard-and-fast rules would result in cancellations and massive stranding of passengers in airports.
Some passenger advocates say the Senate bill doesn't go far enough because it includes exceptions to the three-hour rule, which could be bypassed if a pilot thought he or she had a good chance of getting the plane airborne soon or if unloading passengers would jeopardize safety and security — a subjective call that would be made by the pilot or airline.
Others say the bill won't work because it puts mandates only on the airlines. When planes don't unload passengers, airlines often blame airport management, FAA regulations or Transportation Security Administration and customs policies.
"The airlines can't do it alone," says former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall, who plans to weigh in at a Sept. 22 hearing in Washington on the legislation. "Any solution must involve cooperation among the airlines, airports, the FAA, the TSA and customs." He said he thinks Congress should scrap the legislation and start over.
The Senate bill faces a battle, and not only on the passenger rights front. It is part of massive legislation reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration that also addresses such issues as air traffic control modernization, aircraft maintenance and labor negotiations.
But the recent Minnesota stranding has ratcheted up the rhetoric in favor of passage.
"You can't treat people like cattle on a cattle car," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, said.
If the Senate does pass its bill, its wording will have to be reconciled with the House version, which says only that airlines should come up with contingency plans for dealing with tarmac delays. There is no time limit. Both the House and Senate bills would mandate that food, water and adequate restrooms be provided during the delays.
The FAA is operating under a temporary extension of its authorization, and that expires Sept. 30. Congress must either extend that authorization or pass a new bill by that date.
While the legislation is debated, the Department of Transportation is considering enacting its own rule that would require each airline, as part of its contract of carriage (the fine print on the ticket), to set its own limit on tarmac waits. Under the plan, which is still subject to revision, airlines could change those limits as often as they wanted but would face fines up to $27,500 for each transgression. Airlines would be in charge of tracking their own compliance.
Airlines say putting their plans into the contract of carriage could bring a flood of lawsuits. A decision on the rule is expected sometime this fall.
Even if the rule is enacted, Hanni says it would be meaningless because airlines would be policing themselves.
The push for passenger rights was born during one of the worst winter storms in Texas history. As thunderstorms parked over Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Hanni, her husband and their two sons, ages 11 and 21, were aboard one of 16 flights diverted to Austin, 14 of them American.
Most of these planes were back in the air after an hour or two, having found a window of calm air. But four of the American planes stayed parked, one for six hours, two for more than seven hours and one, Hanni's, for eight hours and 23 minutes, according to Austin-Bergstrom records.
Ten passengers whose ultimate destination was Austin were taken off the plane with mobile stairs, but the others were kept aboard in hopes of an imminent departure.
Shortly after 9 p.m., Hanni's flight did go to a gate. Hanni and her family flew to Dallas the next morning and, 57 hours after their journey began, eventually arrived at their destination, Mobile, Ala. By then, Hanni had decided to abandon her job in real estate and go after the airlines. Her nonprofit organization — its Web site is www.flyersrights.org — runs on private donations. She does not take a salary but reimburses herself for her expenses.
The family also filed a class-action suit against American Airlines, claiming false imprisonment. It is still pending in federal court in California. A similar case filed in Arkansas by one of the passengers stuck on another American Airlines plane on Dec. 26, 2006, was dismissed in April after a judge said that although the airline should have acted differently, it broke no laws.
American gave its stranded passengers $500 vouchers after the 2006 strandings. In last month's Minnesota incident, Continental gave passengers refunds and $200 vouchers.
Airlines have given various reasons for long waits. Usually, the airlines have said they were hopeful that planes could soon be on their way. Sometimes, there aren't enough gates available at the airport — or at least enough gates owned by the airline whose plane is stranded. Mobile stairs can be used, but FAA rules say ramp workers, who move those stairs, must stay indoors when lightning is near.
In the recent Minnesota case, ExpressJet said passengers couldn't get off because there were no security agents in the airport. TSA spokeswoman Andrea McCauley said it has no problem with airlines unloading passengers, even after security checkpoints are closed, as long as passengers stay within the secured area.
International flights diverted to airports without customs officers can't unload because the passengers re-entering the United States need to go through customs. That, Crandall said, needs to change.
"Let them off the airplane," he said. "This is common sense."
After the December 2006 incident, American Airlines established a policy to allow passengers to get off if a plane sits on the tarmac for more than four hours, assuming it can be done safely. United has a similar four-hour policy. Continental's policy is to let passengers deplane after three hours, and spokeswoman Julie King said partners such as ExpressJet are supposed to abide by it, but "that process broke down" in the Minnesota incident.
Airlines say their surveys show passengers prefer to wait out a delay rather than get off and risk having to compete for space on another flight.
Department of Transportation statistics show that taxi-out times — tarmac delays involving planes headed for the runway — dropped in 2008, to 1,231 strandings of more than three hours from 1,654 in 2007. But 67 of those were for more than five hours, compared with 45 strandings of more than five hours in 2007.
In the first six months of this year, there were 415 taxi-out delays of more than three hours. (Tarmac waits of diverted flights can't be compared with past years, because those figures were not tracked until last October.)
Airlines say that they're trying to cut down on delays but that a legislated trigger for letting passengers off will only strand travelers inside airports.
Hanni says no rule will work without a limit on tarmac delays. If the House version of the FAA bill emerges, she said, "I would have to oppose it."
handers@statesman.com; 912-2590
Waiting to take off
Tarmac waits for all airlines from 2005 to present for flights that taxied out from the gate and then sat. Diverted planes are not included because they were not tracked until last October.
Year 3+ hours 5+ hours
2005 1,089 27
2006 1,341 37
2007 1,654 45
2008 1,231 67
2009 (to June) 415 10
Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics
Who kept planes waiting
Tarmac waits of more than three hours for the first six months of 2009. These numbers include taxi-outs, taxi-ins, diversions and planes that waited and then had flights canceled:
Airline 3+ hrs % of flights
All Airlines 613 .021
Comair 44 .055
Delta 100 .046
United 72 .038
JetBlue 38 .038
US Airways 62 .030
American 66 .025
ExpressJet 37 .025
Mesa 27 .023
Northwest 30 .020
American Eagle 40 .018
Pinnacle 18 .013
AirTran 16 .011
Continental 16 .011
Frontier 4 .008
Atlantic Southeast 9 .006
Skywest 14 .005
Southwest 20 .001
Hawaiian 0 0
Alaska 0 0
Source: Bureau of Transportation Statistics
2009 flights diverted to Austin
Month Diversions Waits of 3+ hours
January 7 0
February 2 0
March 36 3
April 36 1
May 33 4
No tarmac delays exceeded 5 hours.
Source: Austin-Bergstrom International Airport records
Monday, August 31, 2009
NY-TO-PARIS FLIGHT STUCK 6 HOURS ON TARMAC, BUT FAA DENIES IT
NY-TO-PARIS FLIGHT STUCK 6 HOURS ON TARMAC, BUT FAA DENIES IT
Stranded Passengers “Lost in Space” as FAA Considers Flight “On Time”
NAPA, CA (August 31) – Passengers were held onboard a delayed Delta Airlines flight #8601, from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport bound for Paris Thursday night, but the Federal Aviation Administration’s records show that the incident didn’t happen.
FlyersRights.org, America’s largest non-profit consumer organization representing airline passengers, learned of the problem on Thursday night from a passenger who called the group’s emergency Hotline, 877-359-3776.
The caller reported that passengers boarded Delta flight 8601, operated by Air France, at approximately 3:30 PM on Thursday, but had not departed five hours later. The passenger claimed that the crew had provided water to the passengers “like 4 hours ago,” but “nothing other than that.”
A recording of the call is available from Kate@flyersrights.org.
Since the passengers’ ordeal occurred on an international flight, it went unrecorded by the FAA or the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. DOT and FAA statistics do not include tarmac delays on any of the approximately 1.2 million international flights originating or arriving in the United States each year.
The FAA’s data feed through flightstats claims the status of Delta Flight 8601 is “unknown,” while the same data feed through FAA lists it as “on time.”
Both the passengers’ Message and FAA data feeds are available on the FlyersRights.org website at Flyersrights.org link to blog spot.
“When the commercial airline industry claims that tarmac delays are ‘rare’ and ‘affect only a handful of passengers,’ it’s a lie,” says FlyersRights.org founder and Executive Director Kate Hanni. “Their lobbyists have made sure that neither delays on international flights nor those on small regional carriers are counted, even though they represent fully half of the flights in the United States each day.”
Hanni called on Congress to incorporate the bipartisan Boxer-Snowe Airline Passengers Bill of Rights into any extension of the FAA’s authorization when it returns to Washington next week.
The legislation, Hanni said, would give passengers the option of getting off aircraft which are stranded on the tarmac for longer than 3 hours.
- 30 –
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE : MONDAY, AUGUST 31, 2009
CONTACT: MIKE COLLINS PUBLIC RELATIONS, WASHINGTON
TEL: 202-494-6105
EMAIL: mikecollinspr@cox.net
Flightstats FAA Data Feed. Passengers states they boarded at 3:30 and did not depart until 9:30 p.m.
http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightStatus/flightStatusByFlightExtendedDetails.do?id=169035198&airlineCode=DL&flightNumber=8601
Flight: (DL) Delta Air Lines 8601
Operated by (AF) Air France 23
Departure Date: Thu Aug 27, 2009
Status: Unknown Status
Aug 27 4:33 PM Airline Gate Adjustment AEQP Changed To 772
Aug 27 5:02 PM FAA Time Adjustment Estimated Runway Arrival Changed From 08/28/09 05:04 AM To 08/28/09 05:07 AM
Aug 27 7:51 PM FAA Time Adjustment Estimated Runway Arrival Changed From 08/28/09 05:07 AM To 08/28/09 05:06 AM
Aug 27 8:53 PM Airline STATUS-Active Actual Gate Departure Changed To 08/27/09 04:30 PM
Estimated Gate Arrival Changed To 08/28/09 05:23 AM
Status Changed From Scheduled To Active
Aug 27 9:39 PM Airline Time Adjustment Estimated Gate Departure Changed To 08/27/09 06:30 PM
Aug 27 10:25 PM FAA Time Adjustment Estimated Runway Departure Changed From 08/27/09 05:03 PM To 08/27/09 07:33 PM
Estimated Runway Arrival Changed From 08/28/09 05:06 AM To 08/28/09 07:36 AM
Aug 28 6:06 PM FlightHistory STATUS-Unknown Status Changed From Active To Unknown
Aug 28 6:06 PM FlightHistory Final Task
Stranded Passengers “Lost in Space” as FAA Considers Flight “On Time”
NAPA, CA (August 31) – Passengers were held onboard a delayed Delta Airlines flight #8601, from New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport bound for Paris Thursday night, but the Federal Aviation Administration’s records show that the incident didn’t happen.
FlyersRights.org, America’s largest non-profit consumer organization representing airline passengers, learned of the problem on Thursday night from a passenger who called the group’s emergency Hotline, 877-359-3776.
The caller reported that passengers boarded Delta flight 8601, operated by Air France, at approximately 3:30 PM on Thursday, but had not departed five hours later. The passenger claimed that the crew had provided water to the passengers “like 4 hours ago,” but “nothing other than that.”
A recording of the call is available from Kate@flyersrights.org.
Since the passengers’ ordeal occurred on an international flight, it went unrecorded by the FAA or the Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics. DOT and FAA statistics do not include tarmac delays on any of the approximately 1.2 million international flights originating or arriving in the United States each year.
The FAA’s data feed through flightstats claims the status of Delta Flight 8601 is “unknown,” while the same data feed through FAA lists it as “on time.”
Both the passengers’ Message and FAA data feeds are available on the FlyersRights.org website at Flyersrights.org link to blog spot.
“When the commercial airline industry claims that tarmac delays are ‘rare’ and ‘affect only a handful of passengers,’ it’s a lie,” says FlyersRights.org founder and Executive Director Kate Hanni. “Their lobbyists have made sure that neither delays on international flights nor those on small regional carriers are counted, even though they represent fully half of the flights in the United States each day.”
Hanni called on Congress to incorporate the bipartisan Boxer-Snowe Airline Passengers Bill of Rights into any extension of the FAA’s authorization when it returns to Washington next week.
The legislation, Hanni said, would give passengers the option of getting off aircraft which are stranded on the tarmac for longer than 3 hours.
- 30 –
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE : MONDAY, AUGUST 31, 2009
CONTACT: MIKE COLLINS PUBLIC RELATIONS, WASHINGTON
TEL: 202-494-6105
EMAIL: mikecollinspr@cox.net
Flightstats FAA Data Feed. Passengers states they boarded at 3:30 and did not depart until 9:30 p.m.
http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightStatus/flightStatusByFlightExtendedDetails.do?id=169035198&airlineCode=DL&flightNumber=8601
Flight: (DL) Delta Air Lines 8601
Operated by (AF) Air France 23
Departure Date: Thu Aug 27, 2009
Status: Unknown Status
Aug 27 4:33 PM Airline Gate Adjustment AEQP Changed To 772
Aug 27 5:02 PM FAA Time Adjustment Estimated Runway Arrival Changed From 08/28/09 05:04 AM To 08/28/09 05:07 AM
Aug 27 7:51 PM FAA Time Adjustment Estimated Runway Arrival Changed From 08/28/09 05:07 AM To 08/28/09 05:06 AM
Aug 27 8:53 PM Airline STATUS-Active Actual Gate Departure Changed To 08/27/09 04:30 PM
Estimated Gate Arrival Changed To 08/28/09 05:23 AM
Status Changed From Scheduled To Active
Aug 27 9:39 PM Airline Time Adjustment Estimated Gate Departure Changed To 08/27/09 06:30 PM
Aug 27 10:25 PM FAA Time Adjustment Estimated Runway Departure Changed From 08/27/09 05:03 PM To 08/27/09 07:33 PM
Estimated Runway Arrival Changed From 08/28/09 05:06 AM To 08/28/09 07:36 AM
Aug 28 6:06 PM FlightHistory STATUS-Unknown Status Changed From Active To Unknown
Aug 28 6:06 PM FlightHistory Final Task
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Lies, Excuses and Passengers' Rights: Travel Weekly, Mike Fabey
AIRLINE BEAT
Lies, excuses and passenger rights
By: Michael Fabey
August 24, 2009
ExpressJet might now well be Kate Hanni's favorite airline. For years, the passenger-rights activist has been crusading for a law that would require airlines to give flyers the option to get off a plane that's been stuck on a tarmac for more than three hours.
To be sure, it looked like this year just might be her year, with both Congress and the Senate including some promising language for Hanni's cause in their bills for FAA reauthorization. Who knows, though, how watered down the final law might have ended up?
But thanks to ExpressJet's Aug. 7 decision to force a plane full of sardined passengers to camp out all night on a regional jet with infants aboard, that three-hour-tarmac-delay law is a pretty safe bet to sail through Congress with its language intact.
Granted, there are a few pretty smart people offering somewhat rational arguments against such legislation. But in the face of such indefensible behavior as ExpressJet's, those arguments fall flat.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, while acknowledging he was short on facts about the incident, called the ExpressJet sleepover "troubling" and demanded an investigation.
Kevin Mitchell, the self-proclaimed voice of the business traveler community (and hardly a Kate Hanni disciple), said that the mess in Minnesota proved the time was ripe for the kind of law that Hanni and her cohorts want.
Personally, I find it disgraceful that we would need such a law. Common sense and decency should prevail here. Then again, this is the airline industry, after all, so common sense and decency are not factors.
They certainly seemed to be in short supply throughout the ExpressJet situation -- during the tarmac "delay" as well as during the carrier's subsequent misguided public relations effort, which was so disingenuous that it only further damaged the airline's credibility.
To recap: The ExpressJet flight, part of a regional service operated under the Continental banner, took off from Houston about 9:30 p.m. for a three-hour flight to Minneapolis. Shortly after midnight, the flight was diverted to Rochester, Minn., because of thunderstorms.
There, the regional jet sat overnight with its passengers until daybreak, not leaving for Minneapolis until 8:21 a.m.
Blogs and interviews are full of accounts of what it was like stuck in a metal tube crammed with tired travelers and bawling babies.
ExpressJet blamed various factors for the clampdown: The plane's crew had reached its FAA-mandated flying limits and could take the plane no further. There were no Transportation Security Administration screeners available to clear the passengers when they deplaned and then reboarded. Airport facilities and policies could not accommodate the off-loaded passengers.
There was really no question about the flight continuing that night. Whether or not the flight crew had actually reached its legal flying time limits, the weather was refusing to cooperate.
The real issue is why ExpressJet would force those passengers to remain on the plane all night.
The TSA was quick to shoot down the carrier's argument that screeners needed to be on duty just to put the passengers in the terminal for the night.
"Airlines, not TSA, make the decision on whether or not to deplane passengers if there is a delay or diversion," the agency said. "TSA does not prohibit airlines deplaning passengers and reboarding without screening as long as they don't exit past the checkpoint and leave the secure area, regardless of whether or not TSA officers are conducting screening operations."
The TSA also said, "In addition, TSA has the ability to recall security officers and resume screening passengers after hours at the request of an airline or airport."
Rochester airport officials were equally quick to reject ExpressJet's assertion that it was somehow their fault that passengers had been forced to spend the night onboard the plane.
Greg Principato, president of Airports Council International-North America, interrupted his vacation to blog the following: "The airport in Rochester, Minn., was ready to help those people. The airline preferred to leave them on the plane and then found it easier to blame the airport and TSA. ... Shame on them."
ExpressJet seems finally to understand this. The company gets the day-late-dollar-short award for acknowledging, days after the fact, that it made a mistake.
"We apologize to the customers for the extended delay of Flight 2816, which did not meet Continental's service standards," spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas said after a week of denials.
But for many in the industry, the apology just wasn't enough.
"They deserve whatever remedies might be forced on them by a traveling public and the politicians who represent them, who are fed up with such irresponsibility," Principato wrote of ExpressJet in his blog. "This is bull."
One thing's for sure: ExpressJet has become the poster-child airline for Hanni and her FlyersRights.org group, exemplifying all that's wrong with airline thinking today when it comes to tarmac delays.
For ExpressJet and other airlines, that could be real punishment.
Email Michael Fabey at mfabey@travelweekly.com.
Lies, excuses and passenger rights
By: Michael Fabey
August 24, 2009
ExpressJet might now well be Kate Hanni's favorite airline. For years, the passenger-rights activist has been crusading for a law that would require airlines to give flyers the option to get off a plane that's been stuck on a tarmac for more than three hours.
To be sure, it looked like this year just might be her year, with both Congress and the Senate including some promising language for Hanni's cause in their bills for FAA reauthorization. Who knows, though, how watered down the final law might have ended up?
But thanks to ExpressJet's Aug. 7 decision to force a plane full of sardined passengers to camp out all night on a regional jet with infants aboard, that three-hour-tarmac-delay law is a pretty safe bet to sail through Congress with its language intact.
Granted, there are a few pretty smart people offering somewhat rational arguments against such legislation. But in the face of such indefensible behavior as ExpressJet's, those arguments fall flat.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, while acknowledging he was short on facts about the incident, called the ExpressJet sleepover "troubling" and demanded an investigation.
Kevin Mitchell, the self-proclaimed voice of the business traveler community (and hardly a Kate Hanni disciple), said that the mess in Minnesota proved the time was ripe for the kind of law that Hanni and her cohorts want.
Personally, I find it disgraceful that we would need such a law. Common sense and decency should prevail here. Then again, this is the airline industry, after all, so common sense and decency are not factors.
They certainly seemed to be in short supply throughout the ExpressJet situation -- during the tarmac "delay" as well as during the carrier's subsequent misguided public relations effort, which was so disingenuous that it only further damaged the airline's credibility.
To recap: The ExpressJet flight, part of a regional service operated under the Continental banner, took off from Houston about 9:30 p.m. for a three-hour flight to Minneapolis. Shortly after midnight, the flight was diverted to Rochester, Minn., because of thunderstorms.
There, the regional jet sat overnight with its passengers until daybreak, not leaving for Minneapolis until 8:21 a.m.
Blogs and interviews are full of accounts of what it was like stuck in a metal tube crammed with tired travelers and bawling babies.
ExpressJet blamed various factors for the clampdown: The plane's crew had reached its FAA-mandated flying limits and could take the plane no further. There were no Transportation Security Administration screeners available to clear the passengers when they deplaned and then reboarded. Airport facilities and policies could not accommodate the off-loaded passengers.
There was really no question about the flight continuing that night. Whether or not the flight crew had actually reached its legal flying time limits, the weather was refusing to cooperate.
The real issue is why ExpressJet would force those passengers to remain on the plane all night.
The TSA was quick to shoot down the carrier's argument that screeners needed to be on duty just to put the passengers in the terminal for the night.
"Airlines, not TSA, make the decision on whether or not to deplane passengers if there is a delay or diversion," the agency said. "TSA does not prohibit airlines deplaning passengers and reboarding without screening as long as they don't exit past the checkpoint and leave the secure area, regardless of whether or not TSA officers are conducting screening operations."
The TSA also said, "In addition, TSA has the ability to recall security officers and resume screening passengers after hours at the request of an airline or airport."
Rochester airport officials were equally quick to reject ExpressJet's assertion that it was somehow their fault that passengers had been forced to spend the night onboard the plane.
Greg Principato, president of Airports Council International-North America, interrupted his vacation to blog the following: "The airport in Rochester, Minn., was ready to help those people. The airline preferred to leave them on the plane and then found it easier to blame the airport and TSA. ... Shame on them."
ExpressJet seems finally to understand this. The company gets the day-late-dollar-short award for acknowledging, days after the fact, that it made a mistake.
"We apologize to the customers for the extended delay of Flight 2816, which did not meet Continental's service standards," spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas said after a week of denials.
But for many in the industry, the apology just wasn't enough.
"They deserve whatever remedies might be forced on them by a traveling public and the politicians who represent them, who are fed up with such irresponsibility," Principato wrote of ExpressJet in his blog. "This is bull."
One thing's for sure: ExpressJet has become the poster-child airline for Hanni and her FlyersRights.org group, exemplifying all that's wrong with airline thinking today when it comes to tarmac delays.
For ExpressJet and other airlines, that could be real punishment.
Email Michael Fabey at mfabey@travelweekly.com.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
FlyersRights.org Airs Ad During Obama's Martha's Vineyard Visit
FlyersRights.org Airs Ad During Obama's Martha's Vineyard Visit
Citizen-Activist Kate Hanni Available for Interviews Monday
NAPA, Calif., Aug. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- President Obama arrives for a much-deserved vacation on Martha's Vineyard today, but he'll be greeted by a message from FlyersRights.org reminding him of his support for the Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights.
"We're closer to protecting airline passengers than ever before," said Kate Hanni, who founded 26,000-member FlyersRights.org after she and her family were stuck on the tarmac in Austin for 9 hours in 2006.
"We're coming to Martha's Vineyard to remind the President of his co-sponsorship of the legislation when he was a Senator and to ask him to support us as President."
The bipartisan Boxer-Snowe Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights was approved unanimously by the Senate Commerce Committee in July, and is expected to be taken up by the Senate next month.
Besides allowing passengers to get off stranded aircraft after 3 hours on the tarmac, it would require airlines to provide adequate food, water, toilet facilities and temperature controls.
In addition, noted Hanni, "The bill will shine the light on the airlines' hidden nickel-and-dime fees and charges, and force the airlines to inform you if the flight you're about to book is chronically delayed or cancelled."
Hanni credited her group's progress this year to a number of recent high-profile tarmac delays, including 278 flights stuck on the tarmac for longer than 3 hours in June alone, nearly 10 every day.
The spot will air on cable television on Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Cape Cod throughout the week of the First Family's visit.
The text of the ad, which includes photos of actual tarmac strandings and headlines describing some of the worst such incidents, reads as follows:
"Mr. President, my name is Kate Hanni. I founded FlyersRights.org after my family and I were stranded on the tarmac in 2006 for 9 hours. Since then, it's happened to passengers on at least 3,000 flights. Imagine what it's like: no food, no water, toilets overflowing. As a Senator, you co-sponsored the Airline Passengers Bill of Rights. Please, sir, urge Congress to pass it. And sign it into law. Enough is enough." Link to Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYHQByjtnAY
Ms. Hanni will be available for interviews and appearances on the Vineyard on Monday. To book her, contact Kate Hanni, 707-337-0328, or Mike Collins Public Relations at 202-494-6105 or email mikecollinspr@cox.net.
Citizen-Activist Kate Hanni Available for Interviews Monday
NAPA, Calif., Aug. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- President Obama arrives for a much-deserved vacation on Martha's Vineyard today, but he'll be greeted by a message from FlyersRights.org reminding him of his support for the Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights.
"We're closer to protecting airline passengers than ever before," said Kate Hanni, who founded 26,000-member FlyersRights.org after she and her family were stuck on the tarmac in Austin for 9 hours in 2006.
"We're coming to Martha's Vineyard to remind the President of his co-sponsorship of the legislation when he was a Senator and to ask him to support us as President."
The bipartisan Boxer-Snowe Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights was approved unanimously by the Senate Commerce Committee in July, and is expected to be taken up by the Senate next month.
Besides allowing passengers to get off stranded aircraft after 3 hours on the tarmac, it would require airlines to provide adequate food, water, toilet facilities and temperature controls.
In addition, noted Hanni, "The bill will shine the light on the airlines' hidden nickel-and-dime fees and charges, and force the airlines to inform you if the flight you're about to book is chronically delayed or cancelled."
Hanni credited her group's progress this year to a number of recent high-profile tarmac delays, including 278 flights stuck on the tarmac for longer than 3 hours in June alone, nearly 10 every day.
The spot will air on cable television on Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Cape Cod throughout the week of the First Family's visit.
The text of the ad, which includes photos of actual tarmac strandings and headlines describing some of the worst such incidents, reads as follows:
"Mr. President, my name is Kate Hanni. I founded FlyersRights.org after my family and I were stranded on the tarmac in 2006 for 9 hours. Since then, it's happened to passengers on at least 3,000 flights. Imagine what it's like: no food, no water, toilets overflowing. As a Senator, you co-sponsored the Airline Passengers Bill of Rights. Please, sir, urge Congress to pass it. And sign it into law. Enough is enough." Link to Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYHQByjtnAY
Ms. Hanni will be available for interviews and appearances on the Vineyard on Monday. To book her, contact Kate Hanni, 707-337-0328, or Mike Collins Public Relations at 202-494-6105 or email mikecollinspr@cox.net.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Flight Prompts Calls for Passenger Rights
CBS News - Aug 11, 2009
St. Paul, Minn -- Link Christian was one of the 47 passengers trapped in a plane on a tarmac for six hours early Saturday morning in Rochester, Minn. They didn't have a way to get off the plane then, but the St. Paul, Minn. man is now working to help other plane passengers be assured of their rights to proper treatment by airlines.
St. Paul, Minn -- Link Christian was one of the 47 passengers trapped in a plane on a tarmac for six hours early Saturday morning in Rochester, Minn. They didn't have a way to get off the plane then, but the St. Paul, Minn. man is now working to help other plane passengers be assured of their rights to proper treatment by airlines.
Christian said on "The Early Show" Tuesday his "nightmare" flight is an example of why a airline Passengers' Bill of Rights needs to get through Congress.
Christian, who sat in the back row of the plane by the bathroom that broke during the six-hour wait, said he's going to tell his story to Congress next month in hopes that the Bill of Rights will pass.
"I simply want to tell the story," he told "Early Show" co-anchor Julie Chen. "I watched everything for six hours. So my view is to not politicize it, but to tell the story of what it was like to be on that airplane for six hours on that airplane, being essentially a prisoner ... I would like to see the rights of passengers on a tarmac be enhanced to the extent the rights that passengers have safety-wise when they're in the air. There's thousands of regulations that protect us in the air. I'd like to see some of those regulations while we're on the ground."
Christian said during the wait the flight crew continued to tell passengers they would get off the plane, telling them at one point a bus would come and pick them up. The bus, he said, never came.
He said, "It was six hours of a continued sense that we were going to get out of there."
However, as the hours ticked by, Christian said the plane's atmosphere grew gradually tenser.
"We became increasingly frustrated," he said. "Everybody at that point was pretty exhausted. People had children crying. The whole atmosphere of the plane was just one of sort of deteriorating emotional stability."
But as Kate Hanni, a passenger advocate who was herself once stuck on the tarmac for 13 hours, said, passengers currently have few options when they're stuck on the runway.
"Right now as it stands, the airlines can hold you indefinitely," she said, "and they don't have to provide you with food, water, hygienic toilets, or any medical needs."
In her 13-hour ordeal, Hanni said women were making diapers for their babies out of t-shirts and diabetics were going into shock.
She said, "There's no culpability for the airlines at all, which is why we're pushing for a law in Congress."
Hanni said the legislation in the Senate pushes for a time limit the airlines can hold passengers on the tarmac. She told Chen a constraint of three hours should be mandated. In addition, Hanni said advocates are pushing for essential needs: food, water, toilets and trash, to be managed while passengers are held on the runway.
Hanni added there are no federal regulations preventing the airline from removing passengers from the plane, which ExpressJet Airlines claimed was the reason the passengers of Friday's flight couldn't leave the plane.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Passenger Rights Stakeholder Hearing
Passenger Rights Stakeholder Hearing: Examining a Market Failure?
Presented by AirPassengerAdvocacy.travel
September 22, 2009 - Washington, DC
On Tuesday morning, September 22, 2009 consumer groups and travel industry organizations will conduct a Stakeholder Hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building regarding airline passenger rights. The purpose of the hearing is to examine passenger safety-related problems such as extended ground delays. Desired outcomes from the hearing include a better understanding of passenger safety problems; best practices from the EU in the area of passenger protections; and the potential efficacy of proposed Congressional solutions. Experts representing all sides in this debate have been invited to participate in this hearing.
This passenger-safety issue first reached prominence in 1999 after a snowstorm stranded aircraft for up to eight hours at Detroit Metro Airport. 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. More recently, excessive ground delays in Texas and New York in 2006 and 2007 respectively led to a new round of Congressional hearings and increased calls passenger rights legislation. Such legislative prescriptions are currently included in FAA reauthorization bills in the House and in the Senate, whose version would allow passengers to disembark after three hours delay, should a captain decide it is reasonable and safe to do so.
In addition to audience members attending the hearing, stakeholders will comprise “Witnesses” and “Questioners.” Witness panels will include passengers and airline, airport, association and government executives as well as functional-area experts from acadème and industry. Witnesses will present 5-minute statements. After all statements are made, Questioners will address their queries to each of the Witnesses. Questioners will include corporate travel managers, functional area experts and former DOT IGs. Also joining as Questioners will be members of the press to provide an extra measure of impartiality.
The Stakeholder Hearing will also have a roundtable discussion among Senators and Representatives interested in this issue moderated by a media luminary.
While attendance is free of charge, registration is necessary at http://eventbrite.twi.bz/b and seating is limited.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
USA Today Editorial: Our view on passenger rights: Trapped on the tarmac
Mega-delays continue despite airline promises; it’s time to act.
This April, when a Delta Air Lines flight from the Caribbean to Atlanta was diverted to Columbia, S.C., because of bad weather, passengers endured a five-hour wait sealed in the plane with crying babies, smelly toilets and insufficient food and water. When they finally were allowed to deplane, the irate fliers were initially held in a small room with a few chairs, passenger Nancy Whitehead recently told USA TODAY's Gary Stoller. And when they re-boarded with high hopes of heading to Atlanta, they were delayed again by a refueling problem. All told, the flight was about 10 hours late.
If any of this sounds familiar, it's because it is. The nightmare on Delta, complicated by the fact that it was an international flight and passengers had to clear U.S. Customs, is simply one of the more recent mega-delay horror stories.
After a couple of highly publicized incidents more than two years ago — when fliers were stuck for nearly 10 hours on a JetBlue flight in an ice storm at New York's Kennedy International and for eight hours on an American Airlines jet diverted to Midland, Texas — the airline industry and government officials promised to do more for passengers trapped on tarmacs for hours on end.
So how has the industry responded? With failed promises to fix the problem, and successful lobbying to block congressional action.
Congress has done so little to help that its members might as well have been stranded on a plane for the past two years. Last month, a Senate committee finally approved a measure that would require airlines to deplane passengers after three-hour tarmac delays, unless the pilot deems it unsafe or the flight could take off within 30 minutes. The House, meanwhile, has approved a limp provision that would do little to force change.
It's true that such delays are relatively rare and often beyond the airlines' control. Even so, they happen often enough to deserve a solution. Since January 2007, 200,000 domestic passengers have been stuck on 3,000 planes for three hours or more waiting to take off or taxi to a gate, according to Stoller's analysis of government data.
You'd think that bad publicity, competitive pressures and lobbying by FlyersRights.org, a consumer group founded by a passenger stranded two years ago, would have been enough to force meaningful action by the airlines. But as the Delta delay suggests, more is needed.
Continental Airlines says it is now using movable stairs and vehicles to deplane passengers after three hours. On June 18, at Newark Liberty airport, one passenger who asked to deplane when thunderstorms stranded a flight was able to do so, according to a spokesman. If Continental can provide this service, it's hard to see why everyone else can't, too.
Two years is long enough to wait for voluntary action. With a shove from Congress, odds are the industry will fix this problem faster than you can say "stranded passenger."
Posted at 12:21 AM/ET,
This April, when a Delta Air Lines flight from the Caribbean to Atlanta was diverted to Columbia, S.C., because of bad weather, passengers endured a five-hour wait sealed in the plane with crying babies, smelly toilets and insufficient food and water. When they finally were allowed to deplane, the irate fliers were initially held in a small room with a few chairs, passenger Nancy Whitehead recently told USA TODAY's Gary Stoller. And when they re-boarded with high hopes of heading to Atlanta, they were delayed again by a refueling problem. All told, the flight was about 10 hours late.
If any of this sounds familiar, it's because it is. The nightmare on Delta, complicated by the fact that it was an international flight and passengers had to clear U.S. Customs, is simply one of the more recent mega-delay horror stories.
After a couple of highly publicized incidents more than two years ago — when fliers were stuck for nearly 10 hours on a JetBlue flight in an ice storm at New York's Kennedy International and for eight hours on an American Airlines jet diverted to Midland, Texas — the airline industry and government officials promised to do more for passengers trapped on tarmacs for hours on end.
So how has the industry responded? With failed promises to fix the problem, and successful lobbying to block congressional action.
Congress has done so little to help that its members might as well have been stranded on a plane for the past two years. Last month, a Senate committee finally approved a measure that would require airlines to deplane passengers after three-hour tarmac delays, unless the pilot deems it unsafe or the flight could take off within 30 minutes. The House, meanwhile, has approved a limp provision that would do little to force change.
It's true that such delays are relatively rare and often beyond the airlines' control. Even so, they happen often enough to deserve a solution. Since January 2007, 200,000 domestic passengers have been stuck on 3,000 planes for three hours or more waiting to take off or taxi to a gate, according to Stoller's analysis of government data.
You'd think that bad publicity, competitive pressures and lobbying by FlyersRights.org, a consumer group founded by a passenger stranded two years ago, would have been enough to force meaningful action by the airlines. But as the Delta delay suggests, more is needed.
Continental Airlines says it is now using movable stairs and vehicles to deplane passengers after three hours. On June 18, at Newark Liberty airport, one passenger who asked to deplane when thunderstorms stranded a flight was able to do so, according to a spokesman. If Continental can provide this service, it's hard to see why everyone else can't, too.
Two years is long enough to wait for voluntary action. With a shove from Congress, odds are the industry will fix this problem faster than you can say "stranded passenger."
Posted at 12:21 AM/ET,
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