Passenger bill of rights proposed.
Mounting chaos on the runways has angered countless commercial flyers and has posed questions over passengers’ actual rights. A consumer advocates group is lobbying to better protect passengers and hold airlines more accountable.In a recent Las Vegas Review-Journal article, John Przybys writes, “It’s a safe bet that many Americans who travel by air assume that a slew of government regulations offer them a variety of consumer protections. Not so.”
For example, airlines are not required to provide lodging (or compensation) if you must spend the night in a hotel (or in an airport chair) due to flight delays or cancellations. Airlines do not even provide a guarantee that they will get you to your destination at all. They are committed to doing their best, all things considered, but as Przybys puts it, “there are a lot of things that can go wrong.”
We know.
Now a federal advisory committee has been formed, with a goal of developing contingency plans for handling all those things that can go wrong (including operational, mechanical and meteorological snafus). Efforts have been made to enact a federal and/or state-by-state passenger “bills of rights. ” In fact, a proposed national bill is currently stalled in the Senate, New York has already adopted its own state bill of rights, and California is soon to unveil its proposal. A separate proposal to increase compensation awarded to bumped passengers has also been proposed.
Of course, we know better than to get our hopes up yet. If you still “rely” on commercial airlines, prepare for continued turmoil on the tarmacs, with little accountability from your provider.
