Q&A: Air Passengers Need a Bill of Rights
What sort of response have you gotten from people since you began this campaign? Is this a huge problem?
This is a huge problem. A few days ago, the Associated Press gave me a statistic from the Department of Transportation that said there were 36 flights that prior to departure sat for longer than five hours in the United States for 2006. But the operative phrase is "prior to departure." They don't have any statistic device yet for planes like ours that have left the airport and are just diverted–and I think that's intentional. I met with [Sen. Jay] Rockefeller's office and [Sen. Trent] Lott's office–the heads of the aviation subcommittee in the Senate–earlier today and I said to them, 'If these stranding incidents are such a statistical improbability, then why are the airlines fighting this so hard?' If it's not really happening all that often, then our legislation [which lets passengers deplane after delays on the tarmac of three or more hours] shouldn't have that much of an effect.
I have enough letters from people with exact flight numbers to convince me this is a big deal. I'm receiving text messages from people while they're sitting on planes–or their families are on planes and they want to know if I can help.... It's also worth noting, when [the feds] say complaints are down about these sorts of delays, that may be fundamental to the fact that no one I've talked to had any idea they should talk to the Department of Transportation about what's happened to them.
How many people have signed your petition for this bill so far?
Just a hair less than 14,000
Do you get the sense that people will support this measure on the Hill?
Definitely. The response they give me really depends on the number of constituents who have called their office. If there are lots, then obviously the response is very good. If they haven't heard from someone, they aren't saying that they're not supporting it. They've asked me this week to sort the petition list so they can see how many of their constituents are in our coalition. We also have the [U.S.] Public Interest Research Group's support, which has, like, a million members of something. They're in the process of sending out a letter now asking for cosponsorship in the Congress and on the Senate side.
Honestly, this has happened so fast. I'm being told that this has been extremely swift for this type of legislation to have been introduced on both sides, and now, it's all about gathering the support that is necessary, and that's what we're up to. I also believe there's business traveler support. I interact with some of my husband's business partners, who include people like the chairman of the board of Peet's Coffee [& Tea], the head of the Beringer Wine Estates, and a former board member of American Airlines, of all things, and I've asked them how much time is probably lost per year because of flight delays. And they've told me at least 20 hours out of a year of traveling for a member of an organization. Now that's extraordinary.
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