Airlines Fighting New York's Airline Passenger Bill of Rights

On Friday, the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights released a statement concerning the fact that on October 17th, 2007, the Air Transport Association of America (ATA), representing major U.S. commercial airlines, filed suit against the State of New York to strike down a recent law that would guarantee airline passengers food, water, access to electricity, and working restrooms during tarmac delays lasting more than three hours.

Airlines that fail to live up to this standard would be fined $1000 per passenger.

Filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of the State of New York, the lawsuit claims that the state law is unconstitutional because only federal agencies can regulate airlines, and is requesting that the court strike it down before it goes into effect on January 1st of 2008.

The ATA further claims that such long delays are rare, but that the industry is voluntarily taking action to improve onboard services should such situations arise.

"Only an industry with a virtual monopoly can afford to continuously alienate their customers as effectively as the airlines," said Kate Hanni, founder and spokesperson for the Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights.

Hanni was once stranded at an airport in Dallas for nine long hours.

"It's no wonder the reputation of the airline industry is in such bad shape when they spend their time fighting to deny passengers the right to a drink of water or a clean bathroom," said New York Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, who is the prime sponsor of the law.

Governor Eliot Spitzer singed the bill into law on August 1st of this year. It is known as the Airline Passenger Bill of Rights.

The measure was introduced and almost unanimously approved in the state Congress in the wake of a fierce ice storm this past February that ended up keeping thousands of passengers stranded at John F. Kennedy International Airport for many hours.

The ATA and other travel analysts have also criticized the law for opening the door to all 50 states writing 50 potentially different laws concerning the matter, which in turn would lead to regulatory nightmares and, they assert, inevitably too many costly lawsuits.

They have also opined that the airline industry will voluntarily work to come up with its own customer-satisfying solution because customers have increasingly made it clear that they will flock to those airlines that improve delay conditions while taking their business away from those that ignore the problems.

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