Passenger bill of rights

The last time I flew we took off 40 minutes late and after landing sat on the runway for 90 minutes. Our pilot was clueless. “Folks, I’m not sure what’s going,” he said after taxiing for a bit. “But the line of planes to the gate is a mile long.” Groan.

That was nothing, of course. The Now famous Dec. 29 American Airlines flight 1348 from San Francisco bound for Dallas takes the prize. After being diverted to Austin, Tx., passengers sat on the ground for nine hours before being allowed to exit. Yes, nine hours–while toilets filled and food ran out. I had heard about that incident before my most recent flight (New York to Houston), and you can bet it was on my mind as we sat with no information for 45 minutes, an hour, 90 minutes… Would this be another nine hour ordeal? My mind was more unsettled than usual expressly because of the American incident.

We all, who travel, have a stake in American’s dispicable response to a perfectly manageable situation. If this kind of unconscionable delay can happen once, it can happen a thousand times. I’m 6 feet, 3 inches tall and borderline claustrophobic. I have to mentally prepare for a flight in coach. Four hours? OK. I can make it. But when it stretches to six hours with no resolution in sight I grow uneasy and uncomfortable. Not just fidgety, but emotionally and mentally
harmed. Airlines must do better by us all. Read the proposed passenger bill of rights at www.strandedpassengers.blogspot.com and support it however you can.