David Field WASHINGTON DC
With delays growing and a renewed round of US airline mergers, Congress could be in a mood to legislate on passenger rights and competition
In Washington, they talk about the "dance of legislation". It describes the lengthy process of how a "public issue" is first distilled into a bill, then becomes a "focal point" and a "centre for discussion". Sometimes it even becomes law. The dance has started early this year for the airline industry, with bills on passenger rights and airline competition.
Airline executives are still hoping that the dance remains at the discussion stage, but it could yet become a legislative campaign designed to punish the industry for the past two years of delays and the frustration of a nation of passengers. That includes those most frequent of fliers, the members of Congress themselves.
These flying legislators have already crafted proposals that bring Congress as close to re-regulation as it has come in two decades. "I have heard more talk about airline re-regulation this year than in any other since I have been here," says Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat now in her fifteenth year in the House of Representatives and a persistent airline critic.
Behind the talk is the widespread public perception that the proposed carve up of US Airways by United and American Airlines will worsen already widely derided levels of airline service. "We have to do something now before the airline system gets worse," says Senator Mike DeWine, the Ohio Republican who chairs an anti-trust subcommittee that has questioned the merger. He has moved a bill that could strip post-merger United and American of landing slots at two key airports - New York LaGuardia and Washington Reagan National.
Senate heavyweights
So this year, a two-pronged attack wraps the mantle of consumer protection around proposals that would give the Department of Transportation (DoT) extraordinary powers. One suggestion is the power to redistribute airport gates and slots. Another empowers the DoT to order fares reduced or to compel a carrier to continue operating flights if it considers the airline to be "dumping capacity" or flooding the market to drive out a low-fare competitor.
The two leaders of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, Senators John McCain and Ernest Hollings, have paired up to champion a competition bill containing gate redistribution powers. They also back a bill to codify consumer protections recommended by the DoT's inspector general. These aim at improving communications about delays, ticketing and pricing.
The consumer protection measure is seen as likely to pass with only token opposition from the airlines, but the competition bill has the industry "really scrambling" in the words of Washington lobbyist Mike Korens who was a key aide to the committee in earlier sessions. "They don't know what to do to head it off," he adds.
That this measure is offered by committee chairman McCain and Hollings, the senior Democrat on the panel, makes it even more formidable. "Very few committee members are willing to vote against their chairman and highest-ranking Democrat," Korens says.
At the core of the Hollings/McCain Bill are powers to allow the DoT to redistribute airport gates and slots which are held by a carrier holding 50% or more of the boardings at an airport to smaller airlines. The transportation secretary can do this on his own initiative or after a carrier has complained; the cost of gate access charged by the larger carrier must be only be "fair and reasonable".
Smaller contenders such as Sun Country and AirTran Airlines have argued that they are effectively excluded from desirable airports. They complain that large carriers can either refuse to sublease them gates that are underused or block their acquisition of gates through influence over airport expansion.
"We believe that this can withstand legal challenge. Both McCain and Hollings are hell-bent on getting something done," says a committee aide who helped draft the measure. It is uncertain, though, if counterparts in the House share the same drive as the two Senators. Both the House transportation committee and its aviation subcommittee have new leaders with uncertain agendas.
Sceptical House
At the same time, the highest-ranking Democrat on the House committee, Jim Oberstar, is sceptical of the need for a major bill like this.
"My concern is that if we get an aviation competition bill on the floor, there will be a whole rush to add every pet peeve from how far back the seats on the plane should recline to how much leg room there should be," he says.
Oberstar, who chaired the aviation subcommittee when the Democrats were in power, has long exercised authority over the Republican-led committee by virtue of his knowledge of aviation. He has known the committee's new chair - Don Young of Alaska - since the two served on a maritime committee during Oberstar's first term.
Yet despite Oberstar's words of caution, the Hollings/McCain provisions could easily make their way into other bills. A measure need only pass one chamber, the Senate or the House, for parts of it to be adopted by the other chamber. In fact, last-minute minuets that blend different parts of different bills are common toward the end of a congressional session.
There is another political twist that could raise the prospects of the Hollings/McCain measures making it into law. That is the presence of a different and more far-reaching set of proposals - being backed by another powerful Senator - which could make the Hollings/McCain approach look like a palatable alternative.
These competing proposals come from Senator Harry Reid, who is the second most powerful member of the Democratic leadership - which means a lot in a year when the Republican margin of control has been trimmed to almost-equal power sharing. Reid's home of Las Vegas, Nevada, relies heavily on good airline service for its gambling and holiday resorts industry. He does not believe that they have been receiving it. "The airlines grumble and accuse us of re-regulation. That's too bad," says a clearly frustrated Reid.
Passenger rights
Reid wants to pass both passenger rights and competition measures. His passenger rights bill would make it an unfair and deceptive practice if an airline failed to give an accurate explanation for a flight delay. This sets the carrier up for a possible fine even though it is not clear how the accuracy or inaccuracy of the airline's explanation would be tested, or by whom.
Reid would give passengers the right to be allowed off a plane that has been at an airport gate for more than an hour past its departure time and is still 15 or more minutes from departing. His competition bill would let the DoT order "unreasonably high" fares reduced and order a dominant carrier at a hub airport to keep in place for two years flights that were added or fares that were lowered in response to a new low-fare airline.
Some insiders dismiss Reid's proposals as unworkable, and say the Hollings/McCain Bill will do double duty by heading off Reid and then itself languishing. They believe that McCain's main focus will have to shift away from transportation and towards campaign finance reform - the key issue of his 2000 presidential campaign.
But this is nevertheless a "dangerous time" for aviation, says former transportation secretary Jim Burnley, now a lawyer in Washington with Winston and Strawn. "If this summer plays out as I fear it will with air-traffic delays, you could easily see the atmosphere in both the House and the Senate become one where perfectly reasonable people are approached every time they go into the private dining room or cloakroom by members [who are] frustrated with their airline service. Eventually, they could sign on to something.dangerous," Burnley warns.
It looks as if this year's dance could easily do more than stub a few toes.
Source: Airline Business
