A summer of delays, cancellations and other significant disruption is on track to produce the worst summer ever for US air travel.
The delays have led to rising passenger and public outrage, which is giving an impetus to legislation that, if approved, will create more passenger rights.
US traffic is back to the level of 2000, when a strained system, hobbled by storms, set record delays. The on-time performance of the first five months of this year broke those records and was the worst in 13 years. In May only 78% of flights arrived on time. The complaint rate also jumped by 49% compared to May 2006.
The delay situation for is being compounded as flights are operating at record load factors, making it difficult for the carriers to re-accommodate flyers whose flights have been cancelled or who have missed their flights because of record delays at airport security checkpoints. Media reports abound that passengers are routinely stranded for as many as two or three days.
The airlines for their part offer the public few, if any, prospects of short-term relief, saying only that the delays are costing them enormously, as much as $16 billion a year. Through their trade group, the Air Transport Association, US carriers say modernisation of the FAA's air traffic control system along with airports expansion offer the best hopes.
The FAA modernisation effort is bogged down in a raging Congressional debate over how to pay for the upgrades and how to charge airlines and private aviation. Still, passenger advocates have succeeded in attaching "bill of rights" protections for delayed, stranded, and bumped passengers in both the Senate and the House versions of new FAA funding bills. Kirstein & Young lawyer and Washington lobbyist Joanne Young says: "Chances are very good that Congress will do something. Too many people have been affected by airline problems."
Even if Congress passes only a stop-gap FAA funding bill, it could still pass the passenger rights measures, according to lobbyists.
Source: Airline Business
