Bangkok--22 Feb--eTurboNews
ASTA today issued the following statement regarding legislation or other regulatory action to assure that passengers are treated properly by airlines when unexpected circumstances, such as weather disruptions, arise:
ASTA believes it is clear beyond debate that, absent an unforeseen but clear present threat to safety, passengers should not be forced to remain on aircraft without adequate food, water and toilet facilities for periods such as eight or more hours waiting to take off. That said, any solutions that are developed must be measured and appropriate to the circumstances at hand and should not create new problems worse than those sought to be cured.
Given the attention that recent mishandling of passengers by American Airlines and Jet Blue have attracted, it would have been easy for ASTA to fuel the fire with demands for an elaborate ‘Bill of Rights’ for all airline passengers. Instead, we have approached the Air Transport Association (ATA) with the objective of a collaborative dialogue about the solutions to these issues, which go well beyond aircraft mired in snowstorms. ATA has indicated an interest in such dialogue, and we hope that it will commence very shortly.
ASTA believes that one potential path to a solution may lie in creating a regime in which there is proportionality between delay and length of next flight segment as the basis for when passengers must be given the right to deplane.