JetBlue Introduces Passenger’s “Bill of Rights”

JetBlue just had a very bad weekend. A Valentine’s Day storm forced the airline to cancel nearly a quarter of its flights this weekend. Some passengers were forced to spend up to ten hours waiting on the runway. Having spent a meager four hours on a runway this past summer, I can tell you that ten hours on the tarmac is probably what hell is like. Many of these planes ran out of food, heat, and clean toilets.

In lieu of this PR debacle, JetBlue’s CEO David Neeleman is introducing a self-imposed passenger’s “Bill of Rights” requiring the airline to impose penalties on itself and offer “major rewards” to customers who are significantly inconvenienced.

Rep. Michael Thompson, a California Democrat, is seizing on this opportunity to introduce a similar bill to Congress. The bill will require airlines to compensate passengers for delays, cancelations, lost luggage, etc. A similar attempt was made in 1999, following a major storm in Detroit, but the airline industry adopted voluntary customer service initiatives and the matter was dropped. The new bill appears more rigid and penalizing, and includes a cap on the amount of time passengers can spend on the tarmac.

The Air Transport Assocation has come out strongly against the bill, fearing that inflexible large scale standards might do more harm than good.