Today New York governor Eliot Spitzer signed a “bill of rights” for air travelers in New York state. The law, which is summarized (with full text available) here, provides that
whenever passengers have boarded an aircraft but have been delayed from takeoff for more than three hours, the carrier must provide services including electronic generation for the purpose of providing fresh air and lights, waste removal services, and adequate food and drinking water. All carriers must clearly and conspicuously post consumer complaint information, including explanations of passengers’ rights and contact information for Federal aviation agencies and the Office of the Airline Consumer Advocate.
Penalties can be steep:
The Attorney General can seek a civil penalty of up to $1000, or up to $1000 per passenger for violations involving failure to provide required services to stranded passengers.
Why would New York state pass such a bill? Well, the legislature sees it as a great way to extend such regulations nationwide:
New York is home to some of the world’s busiest airports, and so should take the lead in adopting common sense measures that empower consumers and prevent outrageous incidents like these from recurring.
The law, and Spitzer’s statement upon signing the law (“As a major international travel hub, it is our duty to take the lead in adopting measures that will ease air travel for passengers.”), make clear that New York’s measures are meant to inspire copycats. And with New York home to two of the world’s busiest airports, JFK and LaGuardia, this law is sure to effect passengers nationwide and around the world.
The best thing that can be said about this new law is that it doesn’t force airlines to let passengers off planes. That measure, part of a passenger’s bill of rights introduced earlier this year by Senator Barbara Boxer, would have wreaked all sorts of havoc on airline schedules, affecting not only people on the plane but people traveling from airports everywhere. It would force airlines to preemptively cancel a lot of flights in order to preserve as much as their original schedules as possible and avoid the risk of massive penalties. And when the country’s flying at record capacities, that means fewer seats for passengers on canceled flights to catch later, leading to days-long waits in crowded hub airports. You choose: four hours on a plane (very, very bad) or two days at O’Hare (quite possibly purgatory).
Airlines don’t deliberately treat their customers this way. They do it because at the time, it seems better than the alternative. Sometimes it isn’t, but these kinks seem to work themselves out. Our airline industry is finally reaching pre-9/11 capacities and financial health–albeit at the cost of gutted contracts and broken promises to airline employees–and the response is to pile on regulation?
Although the New York law is not the worst that could have happened, it will force airlines to change practices related to maintenance, catering, and logistics in ways that will inevitably raise fares in New York markets and make the state a less competitive place for air travel.
Congress and the states would do better to call for reforms and improvements in our outmoded air traffic control system to provide an infrastructure to support the high demand for travel that has fueled the airlines’ comeback.
New York will probably be praised to the high heavens for being a “laboratory for democracy” in this instance. When the test results become clear, will they be as consumer-friendly as they were touted to be?
Spitzer signs NY air travel ‘bill of rights’ [USA Today, via Today in the Sky]
Evan Sparks's Aviation Policy Blog 
Don’t blink; this law will be gone in a New York minute. See http://nvflyer.wordpress.com/2007/06/24/new-york-legislation-on-collision-course-with-federal-statute/
While this may well be simply a PR exercise on New York’s part, the airlines need to heed the increasing dissatisfaction with their declining “service.”
Case in point: I was stuck on a full plane at BOS on a hot day. Weather delays (announced as at least four hours) prompted the pilot to ask for the jetway back, as the air conditioning available was insufficient to keep the cabin below 100 degrees after the first half-hour.
He told us that he was unable to get the gate staff to bring the jetway back. The cabin staff did little (no resources) to provide fluids as the hours went on. The flight finally left some four and a half hours late.
Now, how many of those passengers will willingly fly that airline again in the near future? This is penny wise and pound foolish behavior. And airline staff often today has such poor morale that their ‘don’t give a damn’ attitude is all to apparent to the passengers.
Not a way to build revenue.
Bill:
It’s not a good way to generate goodwill among customers. But airline delays are as much a problem of the FAA’s repeated unwillingness to modernize the air traffic control system as they are of airlines overscheduling. Service could absolutely be better, especially in terms of cost-free service enhancements like (hello, airlines) manners.
The larger problem is choice. Passengers often have a choice, and they generally choose the cheapest, service be damned. But sometimes they don’t have a choice because of government regulation (see the stonewalling of service-focused Virgin America) or because of anticompetitive behavior by hub airlines (another story altogether).
None of these problems will be solved by a “passenger’s bill of rights.” New York legislators are barking up the wrong tree. The only thing a bill of rights will do is increase fares and cut available flights.
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