Penny-Wise, Pound Foolish - Airline Industry Defeats New York’s Passenger Bill of Rights
On March 25, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Air Transportation Association (on behalf of the Airline industry), the Second Circuit Court of Appeals struck down on technical grounds New York’s law ordering airlines to provide food, water, clean toilets and fresh air to passengers confined in planes that have been unable to take off after three hours.
The Air Transportation Association issued a statement yesterday lauding the Second Circuit’s decision striking down the law as “decisive,” saying it sends “a strong message to other states that are considering similar legislation.”
I no longer wonder why the airline industry is continually reporting that it is in dire straits; instead of approaching legislators who sponsored the law in the first place, and working with them to make sure it passed constitutional muster (and, more importantly, get great P.R. mileage out of it), they filed suit in an effort to assure that they would not be required to furnish their passengers with working toilets, food and water. Admittedly, I know of no customer-service company or industry that could thrive, or even survive long-term with such a blatant arrogance and anti-customer bias. Shame on them.
Tags: consumer protection, corporate greed, passenger bill of rights