COMING AND GOING

Grounded No More?

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UPRIGHT AND LOCKED

Grounded No More?

How long is too long to sit on the tarmac waiting for takeoff?

Three hours, says Kate Hanni of Napa, Calif., who started a campaign for a passenger bill of rights in Congress after sitting in a grounded American Airlines plane for more than eight hours on Dec. 29. Her campaign got traction from JetBlue's recent fiasco, in which planes full of passengers sat idle on taxiways for up to 10 hours, with subsequent delays and cancellations affecting tens of thousands of passengers.

As of last week, more than 12,000 people had signed a petition in support of Hanni's proposed bill of rights. Two California Democrats have agreed to sponsor legislation that would, among other things, give passengers the right to deplane after three hours.

But passengers are rarely left sitting on the tarmac for longer than three hours, and inflexible, arbitrary deadlines could be dangerous , said David Castelveter, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, an airline trade group. For example, it might not be safe to unload a plane during a lightning storm or by way of a metal stairway and bus during a blizzard if no gate is available. Moreover, passengers who have waited three hours will be unhappy if they're forced to deplane even though they could have taken off momentarily.

The industry staved off an earlier push for congressional action by adopting a 12-point "customer service commitment." The commitment promised "every reasonable effort" to provide food, water and restroom facilities during an undefined "long delay." Any remaining impetus to seek legislative action disappeared with 9/11 -- until now.

How did Hanni come up with that three-hour deadline? That's what Northwest began promising after it prompted a similar call to action by leaving passengers in grounded planes in 1999, Hanni told CoGo during an interview she sandwiched between TV appearances.

As for JetBlue, it issued its own customer bill of rights last week. Although it sets a five-hour deadline before promising to unload planes sitting on the tarmac, it offers vouchers to customers stuck in planes delayed as little as 30 minutes. Vouchers range from $25 to the price of a round-trip ticket, depending on the delay's length.

Find JetBlue's bill of rights at http://www.jetblue.com, the industry's customer commitment at http://www.airlines.org/customerserviceand Hanni's plan at http://www.strandedpassengers.blogspot.com.

BOOZE NEWS

No, You Won't Drink to This

If you're flying to or from New Mexico on US Airways, Northwest or Frontier, be prepared for a dry trip. The airlines were ordered to stop serving alcohol as of tomorrow because they don't have a state liquor license. All three stopped before the deadline.

Since when has an airline needed a state liquor license?

For always in New Mexico, says regulatory official Edward Lopez. All other airlines that use New Mexico airports (and Amtrak for that matter) already have liquor licenses. Somehow these three just slipped through the cracks, Lopez said.