Tuesday, October 02, 2007

4164

Passengers' Bill of Rights?

You can drive a 747 through the loopholes according to this travel editor. The legislation was introduced by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) to provide the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act. I guess we know which sex has to handle a wet, poopy baby who's been crying for four hours, don't we?
    The legislation requires airlines to offer passengers the option of safely leaving a plane they have boarded once that plane has sat on the ground three hours after the plane door has closed.

    This option would be provided every three hours that the plane continues to sit on the ground.

    The legislation also requires airlines to provide passengers with necessary services such as food, potable water and adequate restroom facilities while a plane is delayed on the ground.

    The legislation provides two exceptions to the three-hour option. The pilot may decide to not allow passengers to deplane if he or she reasonably believes their safety or security would be at risk due to extreme weather or other emergencies.

    Alternately, if the pilot reasonably determines that the flight will depart within 30 minutes after the three-hour period, he or she can delay the deplaning option for an additional 30 minutes.
I've never had to sit on a runway longer than an hour (most recently when our flight was diverted from Shannon to Dublin, Ireland because of fog), but even I can figure out that all you need to do is open and close a door after 2 hours and 58 minutes to get around that 3 hour rule. And the restrooms are already inadequate, so what is "adequate?"

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