Federal Passengers’ Bill of Rights One Step Closer to Law

Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 05.09.07 | 10:11 AM ET

Remember all those passengers stranded on Jet Blue planes for double-digit hours? The February incidents spurred members of the United States Congress to propose a Passengers’ Bill of Rights, and last week language written by Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) was included in the upcoming Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill.

If you don’t want to read the entire bill, here are the major points from Boxer’s press release:

The language included by the Committee requires air carriers to develop and submit to the Secretary of Transportation their own plan, incorporating medical considerations, to ensure that passengers are provided a clear timeframe under which they will be permitted to deplane a delayed aircraft. The Secretary is required to make the plans available to the public. In the absence of such a plan, passengers would have the option of safely deplaning a grounded aircraft 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.

The news from Washington D.C. comes on the heels of accounts of another incident featuring stranded passengers. In April, USA Today reports, “nearly 200 passengers sat in an American Airlines Boeing 757 jet on the tarmac in Midland, Texas.” They got a few slices of pizza ordered in during their eight-hour ordeal, but not much else.

“I feel like I was hijacked or kidnapped because I couldn’t get off the plane,” Dixie Lee Belmont of Sun City, Ariz., told USA Today’s Alan Levin. “You don’t treat people like that.”

Quotes like that might sway a few skeptics when the FAA reauthorization bill comes up for a vote.

Photo by soylentgreen23, via Flickr (Creative Commons)