The FAA reauthorization bill is inching its way to completion of sorts in the House of Representatives on its way over to the Senate. It is full of good news for airline passengers but sets no standards for tarmac delays, leaving that decision to the airlines.
To be sure, the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2009 is a far-reaching bill with ramifications for every phase of the airline world from passenger facility taxes, fuel taxes, air traffic control and airport contruction as well as new consumer protections. This focuses on a portion of the new consumer protections — tarmac delays.
Kate Hanni, Executive Director of FlyersRights.org, testifying before the House Subcommittee on Aviation, noted that the new FAA bill includes requirements for basic human necessities like food, water, temperature controls and working bathrooms, but there is still no fixed time-limit to tarmac delays.
Hanni is pushing for the inclusion of a three-hour limitation on tarmac waiting time for take off. The FAA bill language currently allows airlines to set their wait times. Calvin Scovell III, the DOT Inspector General, agrees with Hanni that, at the least, there should be a DOT “time-limit range on delay durations before deplaning passengers, such as 3 to 5 hours.” His testimony noted this continuing problem that has carried over since at least 2000:
(1) no definition of what constitutes an extended period of time for meeting passengers’ essential needs during long, on-board delays and (2) no set time limit on delay durations before deplaning passengers.
The strength of the current FAA proposed-legislation wording and pending DOT rules is the requirement that the airlines clearly set definitions of what constitutes an “extended period” and “time-limits” for passenger deplaning and include them in their legal contract of carriage. Once these terms are defined, clarified and included in the contract of carriage, there will be a legal framework that will allow passengers a far easier path to redress should they be stuck on the tarmac for periods of time ranging up to eight and nine hours.
As the bill works its way across Capitol Hill and through the Senate, this question of defining tarmac delays will be debated. It seems that some kind of federal time limitation on runway delays must be included. If not, how will enforcement be possible?
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