The Business of Law – Marketing and Business for Enterprising Attorneys

If there is one constant on the cocktail party circuit, it’s that you will undoubtedly have the same conversations over and over and over again.  The current winner by a long run is the Tiger Woods drama; I’ve heard that one at nearly every party I’ve been to in the last month.  But coming in a distant second is that annual stalwart—the airline horror story.

If you travel often, as I do, you know the story well.  And you’ve probably shared your version: flights delayed, connections missed, nights spent at the airport, etc.  Perhaps one of the best I heard this year was about a friend who was traveling from China on a 14-hour flight with all kinds of books to read, and laptop work lined up, only to be informed that due to electrical difficulties, there was no electricity or lights in the cabin.  Imagine 14 hours sitting bolt upright in the dark (the seat controls were electric and thus not working).

These stories reminded me of a piece I had read right before Christmas in The New York Times.  The article referenced a new set of federal regulations announced by the U.S. Department of Transportation that would impose stiff penalties starting this spring on airlines that keep passengers waiting too long on the tarmac without feeding them or letting them off the plane.  Essentially, airlines that do not provide food and water after two hours or a chance to disembark after three hours will face penalties of $27,500 a passenger.

Heralded by some as a key victory for airline passengers, the new regulations may actually be a step backward that takes the wind out of the sails of the so-called “passengers bill of rights” legislation currently pending in Congress.  That could mean that while the tarmac waiting problem may be resolved, other thorny consumer protection issues will remain.  Put a different way, passenger advocates may have won the battle and lost the war.

Chris Elliot writing over at the Washington Post back in October had a great piece on why the tarmac delay issue may prove to be a pyrrhic victory. He argued:

” In the past few months, a series of headline-grabbing tarmac delays has helped a couple of influential lobbyists convince the media and a few elected officials that tarmac delays are the No. 1 passenger rights problem in America. Worse, they’ve convinced many travelers that tarmac delays are the only important passenger rights issues… I’m willing to bet that my friends in the airline industry, who insist that they oppose the new turn-back law, are quietly pleased that the tarmac lobby has hijacked the passenger rights cause.”

Elliot points out that there are in fact many other passengers’ rights issues, such as truth in advertising, problems with federal preemption and failure to enforce existing consumer laws.

So the good news is that the airlines can not leave you sitting on the tarmac for nine hours without a bag of peanuts or a cold drink.  The bad news is that this “progress” may have come at the expense of thoughtful legislation which would extend basic consumer protection to airline passengers.

That just about guarantees content for your next cocktail party conversation.