Catastrophe - Dick Morris [128]
As JetBlue’s CEO, David Neeleman, said, despite the weather conditions, there was “no excuse” for the company’s performance that day.
JetBlue’s Bill of Rights must have heartened its frequent flyers, but things didn’t necessarily improve on the other big airlines. Kate Hanni, a passenger who was stranded for eight hours on the runway on an American Airlines flight on December 29, 2007, was so outraged at the “indifference” that she said the airline showed to her that she founded the Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights.
The Wall Street Journal described the scene:
After hours of sitting on the runway, the toilets on the American Airlines jet were overflowing. There was no water to be found and no food except for a box of pretzel bags. A pregnant woman sat crying; an unaccompanied teen sobbed. The captain walked up and down the aisle of the MD-80, trying to calm angry passengers. At one point, families with children lined up to be bused to the terminal, but a bus never came.514
Eventually, Hanni’s flight—scheduled to run from San Francisco to Dallas—was diverted to Austin, Texas, because of thunderstorms. Finally, as the Journal reported, “after eight hours on the runway and twelve hours, total, on the plane, the captain told passengers he was going to an empty gate, even though he didn’t have permission.”515 And why didn’t he have access to the empty gate? It appears that, with thunderstorms in the region, “according to airline officials, Austin managers decided to focus on handling regular flights to other cities such as Chicago and St. Louis, hoping they could stay on schedule.”516 This “pivotal decision” meant that Hanni’s flight had to sit and sit and sit on the runway.517
American Airlines was not totally insensitive as its plane sat on the runway. Like a hostage taker who lets women and children go, the airline “allowed about 20 local Austin and San Antonio passengers to get off rather than wait to fly to Dallas only to hop back on a connection back to Austin.”518 Their luggage, not so fortunate, had to remain on board.
As the Journal reported, “conditions in the…cabin quickly deteriorated—toilets overflowed, families ran out of baby diapers. American did not act to empty the toilet tanks until the plane had been stuck on the ground for more than five hours.”519
Meanwhile, American was cheerfully using its four operating gates for regularly scheduled flights and the captain was telling his captives he couldn’t find a gate.
Of course, American was only acting in its own self-interest. Airplane delays are cataloged by the federal government, and taking unusual measures to accommodate the stranded flight and letting the passengers off could have triggered a domino effect and caused dozens of delays, which would have looked bad for American’s on-time record. But without any passenger bill of rights, the airline incurred no penalty for keeping the passengers locked for hours in a stale and sweltering airplane with no food.
While JetBlue responded to its abysmal performance by embracing a passenger bill of rights, American—and other airlines—continue to battle against any such regulation in Congress, the state legislatures, and the courts.
Of course, punishing airlines for delays and requiring that they permit passengers to deplane, get food, or use the bathroom, would worsen their on-time record. Returning to the gate could cause planes to lose their place in line for takeoff and might even run afoul of federal limits on crew work-days.
Currently, the FAA’s “8/16” rule limits a pilot’s total work day to sixteen hours, including a maximum of eight at the airplane’s controls. The rule, of course, is designed to stop tired pilots from flying. A pilot cannot start a new flight that would push him over the eight-hour limit, but he can continue a delayed flight for up to sixteen hours. So if the plane returns to the gate and the delay would push the pilot’s workday over