U.S. Set to Expand Role in Protecting Air Travelers

U.S. Set to Expand Role in Protecting Air Travelers
By SUSAN STELLIN
Copyright by Bloomberg News
Published: March 22, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/business/23delays.html?hpw


The federal government is about to take a larger role in protecting airline passengers, starting with a new rule allowing travelers to get off a plane stuck on the tarmac for more than three hours.

That rule, which passenger advocates have long wanted, and others adopted by the Transportation Department signal a shift from a grass-roots fight for passenger rights to an era of stronger government-enforced consumer protections. The rules, officially labeled Enhancing Airline Passenger Protections, take effect April 29.

Although tarmac delays of three or more hours are increasingly rare, they still occur and leave misery in their wake, as a diverted Virgin America flight demonstrated on March 13, when passengers were stuck on a plane for more than four hours at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh/New Windsor, N.Y.

Other policies may affect far more travelers, including one that requires more disclosure about airline delays before a ticket purchase so customers can avoid flights that perform poorly. That marketplace pressure could provide an incentive for the industry to address the causes of delays.

Airlines will have to publish within their search results the on-time record for each flight and how often it has arrived more than 30 minutes late, highlighting flights that have arrived more than a half hour late more than half the time. Airlines will also have to note the cancellation rate for any flight canceled more than 5 percent of the time.

Continuing to operate a chronically delayed flight will be considered “an unfair and deceptive practice,” under the new requirements, and subject to regulatory penalties. And airlines will have to publish contact information for consumer complaints on their Web sites and all e-ticket confirmations.

The Transportation Department is also requiring airlines to publish plans outlining how they will deal with long tarmac delays. Besides giving passengers the option to get off a plane after three hours (with exceptions for safety and security reasons), airlines will have to provide food, drinking water, working lavatories and medical attention.

The Transportation Department is considering extending the deadline for publishing flight delay data until June 14, to give the airlines more time to update their ticket databases.

In addition, JetBlue, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines have sought a separate extension on the tarmac delay provisions for their operations at Kennedy Airport in New York, arguing that the closing of the main runway there until July 1 for resurfacing was likely to worsen delays. Continental Airlines then asked for an extension at Newark Liberty International and La Guardia Airports, saying the runway’s closing would also worsen delays at those airports because they share airspace.

Bill Mosley, a spokesman for the department, said those requests were still under review, but he did clarify a misunderstanding over reports that the airlines would be fined $27,500 for each passenger — millions of dollars for a large plane — if they violated the three-hour tarmac delay rule.

“That’s the maximum fine for all aviation consumer-type violations — it’s not strictly related to this rule,” he said. “In almost every case, the maximum is not assessed. The department and the carrier agree to a compromise penalty to avoid litigation.”

In fact, recent penalties from the agency have been far more modest, like the $175,000 in total fines levied against Continental, ExpressJet and Mesaba for poor handling of a flight diverted to Rochester, Minn., last August that stranded passengers on board overnight. It was the agency’s first penalty related to a tarmac delay.

The aviation consumer protection Web site, airconsumer.dot.gov, has been redesigned to make it easier for passengers to file complaints.

“The Obama administration believes that airline passengers have rights, and airlines have the obligation to respect those rights,” Mr. Mosley said.

While it is difficult to predict what will happen in spring and summer thunderstorms — the worst time for long tarmac delays — statistics show delays have been less common lately, nationally and at Kennedy.

According to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, there were 196 tarmac delays of three hours or more at Kennedy in 2009, but just 11 in the last four months of the year. But there were 713 tarmac delays of two to three hours at Kennedy, including 90 in the last quarter of 2009. Those numbers suggest that with the runway closing, some delays could tip over into violations.

It would be counterproductive to waive the rule at an airport likely to have delays, said Kate Hanni, founder of FlyersRights.org, who has fought for the tarmac rule since she was stuck on a plane for more than nine hours in 2006.

The group is still asking Congress to pass a similar three-hour delay provision, which is under consideration as part of the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization. “Any change of leadership at D.O.T. could change this rule, but a Congressional law is permanent,” Ms. Hanni said. “Airlines simply don’t want to make the fundamental changes they need to make to fix the problem,” she said. “The solution is to reschedule flights so they’re more evenly distributed throughout the day, or schedule bigger planes.”