Stuck on tarmac? Airlines not required to help passengers

[WriteDown]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal task force approved voluntary guidelines Wednesday for airlines and airports dealing with passengers stranded for hours on the tarmac but produced no fixed limit on how long they can be delayed before being allowed to leave planes.
Guidelines on tarmac delays do not require airlines or airports to provide more services for stranded passengers.

Guidelines on tarmac delays do not require airlines or airports to provide more services for stranded passengers.

Passengers who had hoped for stronger protections were left empty-handed by the guidelines.

"You have to admit that the game is still heavily weighted to business as usual," Kate Hanni, a passenger rights advocate, told her fellow task force members before voting against adoption of the report.

Passenger rights advocates said the report of the tarmac task force, as it is informally known, reflected demands by airline members that they have the flexibility to design their own response plans and not be pinned to a time limit for holding passengers on tarmacs....

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TRAVEL/11/12/airline.delays.ap/index.html?eref=ib_topstories

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Took them a year to come up with this? How much were these people paid for this?

[skooooo]

1. How about this..

When I tell the flight attendant to either let me off the plane, or produce airport security, police, or federal agents to escort me off immediately, it's time to let me off.

[pattmarty]

2. As I have already stated in another post; REGULATE, REGULATE, REGULATE.

[WriteDown]

3. And this will help the delays how?

They basically admitted that there is no viable solution. We call this a "hand-off."

[pattmarty]

14. This is my "general" reply to everything Bush AND St Reagan.

A lot of these "problems" didn't exist before the de-regulation craze. Not just airlines, but trucking, banking, insurance etc.

[WriteDown]

15. Haha...

I got it.

[fed_up_mother]

16. Carter started all of that deregulation

[pattmarty]

18. In my opinion neither Carter or Clinton were "real" Democrat presidents.

[fed_up_mother]

19. I'm not a fan of his presidency, but to be fair, some of the deregulation was

needed. Of course, the republicans took it farther...

[MadinMo]

4. BS

[hvn_nbr_2]

5. Airline-approved "passenger bill of rights"

Airlines (hereinafter referred to as "we") grant to passengers (hereinafter referred to as "you") the following rights:

1. You have the right to give us your money.

2. We have the right to require more money from you, as we choose.

3. You have the right to receive anything that we give you.

4. We have the right to give or not give you whatever we choose.

5. We will, of course, always lie to you about everything, especially about flight delays, connections, and cancellations.

6. If you don't like it, fuck you.

[ramapo]

6. This really makes me want to travel more often!

I've come to hate traveling by air and will now drive if the distance is within reason. I sure do wish we had a viable passenger rail system. Maybe President Obama will get something done here.

[WriteDown]

7. I actually love to fly....

But I regret that it has become little more than cattle cars.

[LanternWaste]

17. Passenger rail...

Efficient, effective and wide-ranging passenger rail and mass transit is one of my pipe dreams.

A lot of people tell me that TX is too far reaching in scale and scope to allow this, but living in the D/FW area, one might think it would be a simple matter to take a train or a bus from west Ft. Worth to east Dallas... but noooo. To far and few between.

Arlington only recently voted on allowing a mass transit bus system in their city, having rejected it numerous times before (having the honor or the nation's largest city w/o mass transit). The reasoning for far too many of the "no" voters had nothing to do with taxes, viability, or efficiency... it was because "mass transit would enable the wrong kind of people to live here..." :eyes:

My apartment is seven miles from my office. Zero way to get from one to the other on bus.

Here's hoping American mass transit recalls and then rebuilds its Glory Days.... :toast:

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. meanwhile in the middle of Africa

our flight was delayed because the airlines jet fuel truck didn't show up, a bus pulled up along the plane they took us into town to a western style resturant and then an hour or two later they drove us right back to the plane and took off right away.

[Sub Atomic]

9. Oh my God!!! Those savages!!

:sarcasm:

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

11. not only that...

the plane was new, the cabin was clean and the flight attendents were not assholes.

[Skittles]

10. they do if they want those passengers back on that airline

I mean, WTF

[LeftyMom]

12. They need to stop counting tarmac delays as "on time" if they leave the gate on time.

It creates an incentive for the airline to line planes up in ridiculous logjams on the tarmac rather than let passengers on delayed flights wait in the relative comfort of the airport.

[nichomachus]

13. If paint were sold like airline tickets

Buying Paint from a Hardware Store:

Customer: Hi. How much is your paint?

Clerk: We have regular quality for $12 a gallon and premium for $18. How many gallons would you like?

Customer:Five gallons of regular quality, please.

Clerk: Great. That will be $60 plus tax.


Buying Paint from an Airline:

Customer: Hi, how much is your paint?

Clerk: Well, sir, that all depends.

Customer: Depends on what?

Clerk: Actually, a lot of things.

Customer: How about giving me an average price?

Clerk: Wow, that's too hard a question. The lowest price is $9 a gallon, and we have 150 different prices up to $200 a gallon.

Customer: What's the difference in the paint?

Clerk: Oh, there isn't any difference; it's all the same paint.

Customer Well, then, I'd like some of that $9 paint.

Clerk: Well, first I need to ask you a few questions. When do you intend to use it?

Customer: I want to paint tomorrow, on my day off.

Clerk: Sir, the paint for tomorrow is the $200 paint.

Customer: What? When would I have to paint in order to get the $9 version?

Clerk: That would be in three weeks, but you will also have to agree to start painting before Friday of that week and continue painting until at least Sunday.

Customer: You've got to be kidding!

Clerk: Sir, we don't kid around here. Of course, I'll have to check to see if we have any of that paint available before I can sell it to you.

Customer: What do you mean check to see if you can sell it to me? You have shelves full of that stuff; I can see it right there.

Clerk: Just because you can see it doesn't mean that we have it. It may be the same paint, but we sell only a certain number of gallons on any given weekend. Oh, and by the way, the price just went to $12.

Customer: You mean the price went up while we were talking!

Clerk: Yes, sir. You see, we change prices and rules thousands of times a day, and since you haven't actually walked out of the store with your paint yet, we just decided to change. Unless you want the same thing to happen again, I would suggest that you get on with your purchase. How many gallons do you want?

Customer: I don't know exactly. Maybe five gallons. Maybe I should buy six gallons just to make sure I have enough.

Clerk: Oh, no, sir, you can't do that. If you buy the paint and then don't use it, you will be liable for penalties and possible confiscation of the paint you already have.

Customer: What?

Clerk: That's right. We can sell you enough paint to do your kitchen, bathroom, hall and north bedroom, but if you stop painting before you do the bedroom, you will be in violation of our tariffs.

Customer: But what does it matter to you whether I use all the paint? I already paid you for it!

Clerk: Sir, there's no point in getting upset; that's just the way it is. We make plans based upon the idea that you will use all the paint, and when you don't, it just causes us all sorts of problems.

Customer: This is crazy! I suppose something terrible will happen if I don't keep painting until after Saturday night!

Clerk: Yes, sir, it will.

Customer: Well, that does it! I'm going somewhere else to buy my paint.

Clerk: That won't do you any good, sir. We all have the same rules. Thanks for painting with our airline.