Released: July 02, 2007

Stuck without Airlines Passenger Bill of Rights

Source: San Jose Mercury News [editorial] (Free Registration)

A planeful of passengers traveling on Continental from Amsterdam to Newark, N.J., in mid-June suffered through stinking, overflowing toilets during an arduous two-day journey that included an overnight stop in Ireland to make airplane repairs that didn’t work.

Northwest Airlines has canceled as many as 16 percent of its flights every day since June 22 because of a pilot shortage and summer storms.
At San Francisco International Airport, nearly 400 passengers were trapped from midnight to 7:30 a.m. June 19 on a Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong that never even left the gate.

The airlines’ response to the increasingly common service disasters: “Sorry about the inconvenience, folks. Thank you for flying `We Don’t Care Airlines.’ B’bye now.”

Sorry, airlines, but “sorry” isn’t good enough. Passengers deserve compensation when they are stuck on a grounded plane for hours without food and water or have their flight canceled because of an airline’s poor planning.

Congress needs to follow the lead of the European Union and require airlines to compensate passengers - in cash, not vouchers - when they are subject to lengthy delays and flight cancellations under the airline’s control.

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