Passenger Bill of Rights for air travel

[dlndavid]

PiFi? OK, dimdave, who made you Queen?:10:

that is right PiFi, wear your name well
it's my high heeled sneakers

 

[dlndavid]

be back later good people, I have to oversee the the changing of the mote water around the castle

 

[pilot fish]

and maybe they were giving out free booze

A mere superficial search of all your previous posts in the threads you post in reveal a childish pattern of one line remarks from you in attempts at being funny, while contrubuting little to no value to the topic under discussion.:shakehead

 

[dlndavid]

all hail PiFi

 

[pilot fish]

that is right PiFi, wear your name well
it's my high heeled sneakers

dimdave, wear yours well also. You are living up to it.

 

[pilot fish]

all hail PiFi

SILENCE, YOU SERF!!!!!:11:

 

[dlndavid]

UNCLE!!!!!!!!!!

 

[pilot fish]

UNCLE!!!!!!!!!!

AND PEACE CAME TO NARNIA AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

 

[DandyDon]

I'm kinda surprised to see this thread after last night's trolling. Thought it'd be in the back room being cleaned of Bevies & Butthead jokes and the like. I see that the arguing is still going on with one liners offer in place of reasonable discussion...

Suggesting here that we get back to the original subject and closely related posts: Bill of Rights, Was anyone wronged, Who did the wrongs, and Do we need to ask the powers of government to protect us or resort to mob rule...?

It wasn't just one plane that was significantly delayed. Excerpting from one article..

The airline said 10 incoming and outbound flights at John F. Kennedy International Airport were "significantly delayed" with customers on board during Wednesday's storm. Reasons included congestion, frozen equipment and an effort to keep planes ready to go in case the weather broke, said JetBlue spokesman Bryan Baldwin.

While they waited to take off, John Farrell waited to arrive. His JetBlue flight from Fort Myers, Fla., landed at 10 a.m., but passengers didn't get off until nearly 7 p.m., he said.

Baldwin said the jam arose as the airline sent outbound flights to the runway — so they could leave immediately if the weather let up — while incoming flights filled up the gates. The problem grew as some equipment used to tow planes away from gates froze to the ground, he said.

Jet Blue neither caused nor condoned the storm of course, but how they treated passengers when it was evident that severe weather was in play must be questioned. The company could have delayed boardings and cancelled flights without compensating passengers as the regulations state that weather related delays and cancellations do not make an airline liable. The company attempted to move the planes and passengers, tho - perhaps so the planes would be in position for subsequent flights, and so that there would not be be a backlog of passengers asking to be rebooked on flights with empty seats that the airline hoped to sell to someone.

Oh yes, the company admitted wrongs - an action they would not have taken if they could have avoided it...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Hundreds of passengers who were stranded on parked JetBlue planes for up to 101/2 hours could have been evacuated sooner if the airline had not waited to ask airport officials for help, the company founder said Thursday.

The airline acknowledged that it hesitated nearly five hours before calling in shuttle buses to unload 10 jets that spent the day sitting on runways at Kennedy Airport because of icy weather and gate congestion.

While they waited, exasperated passengers sat within sight of the terminal without food, adequate restrooms or a reasonable explanation as to why they were not moving.

JetBlue officials finally phoned the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs area airports, at 3 p.m. to ask for staircases and buses to get people off the planes and back to the terminal.

"We should have called them sooner," said JetBlue founder and CEO David Neeleman.

Once they did, some passengers were free within 30 minutes. Others had to wait while the Port Authority shoveled out snow-covered equipment and rounded up drivers.

Many of the stranded passengers did not return to the terminal until 6 p.m. Most had boarded their aircraft around 8 a.m. Some of the jets were incoming flights that had been on the ground since 10 a.m. Six flights were stranded for more than eight hours.

Neeleman said he could not apologize enough.

"We should have done better," he said. "There was an opportunity to do better."

JetBlue's problems began developing when snow and ice pellets made takeoffs difficult but did not stop landings, Neeleman said, resulting in the airline accumulating 52 airplanes at a terminal with 21 gates.

He said the airline held out too long for a break in the icy conditions, then had planes "freeze to the ground" where they had been waiting.

Opponents to the thread's theme have suggested the airline couldn't get people off because support "equipment was frozen to the ground", but this is not true at all. It was the parked planes that were the "equipment was frozen to the ground" - the support equipment was not requested for 5 hours...!

1 - Jet Blue screwed up big time, with no apparent regard to the passengers.

2 - Evacuation was possible but the idea ignored.

3 - And if they get away with it by issuing this public oops and paying the passengers whom they detained - not detained by a storm - then they and other airlines may well do it again.

The only thing need for greed & evil to win is for the wronged & threatened to allow such.

 

[OHGoDive]

I'm kinda surprised to see this thread after last night's trolling. Thought it'd be in the back room being cleaned of Bevies & Butthead jokes and the like. I see that the arguing is still going on with one liners offer in place of reasonable discussion...

Suggesting here that we get back to the original subject and closely related posts: Bill of Rights, Was anyone wronged, Who did the wrongs, and Do we need to ask the powers of government to protect us or resort to mob rule...?

It wasn't just one plane that was significantly delayed. Excerpting from one article..

Jet Blue neither caused nor condoned the storm of course, but how they treated passengers when it was evident that severe weather was in play must be questioned. The company could have delayed boardings and cancelled flights without compensating passengers as the regulations state that weather related delays and cancellations do not make an airline liable. The company attempted to move the planes and passengers, tho - perhaps so the planes would be in position for subsequent flights, and so that there would not be be a backlog of passengers asking to be rebooked on flights with empty seats that the airline hoped to sell to someone.

Oh yes, the company admitted wrongs - an action they would not have taken if they could have avoided it...

Opponents to the thread's theme have suggested the airline couldn't get people off because support "equipment was frozen to the ground", but this is not true at all. It was the parked planes that were the "equipment was frozen to the ground" - the support equipment was not requested for 5 hours...!

1 - Jet Blue screwed up big time, with no apparent regard to the passengers.

2 - Evacuation was possible but the idea ignored.

3 - And if they get away with it by issuing this public oops and paying the passengers whom they detained - not detained by a storm - then they and other airlines may well do it again.

The only thing need for greed & evil to win is for the wronged & threatened to allow such.

Don,

Hopefully I'm not one of the ones whose been trolling with one liners. I'm trying to voice reason here.

I don't disagree with anything that you said in your post. People screwed up, and they rightfully deserve the blame.

However, I have one issue. And that is the fact that you are making this assessment in hindsight. It's much easier than making the right decision at the time, without knowing what was going to happen.

When those planes started landing, sure they could have diverted them, but, that could have just as easily turned out to be the wrong decision too, resulting in hundreds of passengers stranded where they didn't belong with no way to get them back. They could have deplaned passengers, but that could have turned out wrong too. It's much easier with hindsight.

I'm not pushing to absolve anyone. What happened was major league stupid. I'm sure that had JetBlue had the benefit of hindsight, it would have turned out differently.

They screwed up, they've apologized, and they are compensating the affected parties. Personally, I feel that's enough (and more than what most airlines and other companies do when they screw up). But, to say that they should have done things differently without the benefit of hindsight might be a bit unfair.