Deplaning Airlines’ Reputations
We have all seen the footage of Dr David Dao, bloodied by United’s out-sourced thugs, forcibly removed from a flight. In one of their many attempts to divert blame, United made clear that the thugs were not their thugs they were airport security thugs, so that is OK. Think about that. United Airlines did not vet the men it let on-board to forcibly remove a passenger. United’s CEO Oscar Munoz made his apologies – four of them, over 48 hours – until he eventually got it right. Practice makes perfect, which is just as well, as United seems to be a customer-service-apology-generating machine. Off-loaded children; dead rabbits: the hits keep coming. One might think that other airlines could go to school on United’s travails, but instead, they adopted a ‘but-for-the-grace-of-God’ position. In retrospect, that was very wise. Delta got in on the let’s-make-passengers-hate-the-industry game by deplaning a 2-year old child. The parents were threatened with federal offences and gaol time by a Delta agent if they didn’t remove a child seat and place the child on their laps. The father, having paid for the seat, refused. FAA policy recommends the use of a child seat as a safer way to transport children. Airlines are complex businesses. We know this because the airlines tell us, all the time. Both capital and labour intensive, high cost, at the mercy of the oil price, narrow margins and do not start on the regulatory problems. Taxes! Enough said. Booking aggregators and low cost carriers have commoditised the seat. Safety and security require special attention, which is largely unfunded by unappreciative regulators, for an industry that also serves as essential transport infrastructure. Passengers buy every bit of it. They are willing to show up two hours early for a one hour flight. They endure long queues just to have their bags searched and bodies scanned – a presumption of criminal behaviour without reasonable suspicion, or demonstrable effect. Every now and then a smooth talking pilot pops up in the press to tell them that there was no such thing as the good old days, so suck it up. A message delivered in those reassuring tones pilots use, to help make the medicine go down. In short, the airlines have won. Passengers accept that aviation is a complex industry. Airlines deliver safety. As to comfort, they have cut all corners, immiserating the experience in the name of profit. All other passengers have knowingly exchanged comfort for a cheap seat. Dr Dao knew that too, but nevertheless he still did not get what he paid for. The end of May saw two fascinating examples of the decisions the airlines have made to increase their profit. BA determined to cut costs, suffered three days of chaos and demotivated staff at non-functioning airports. Against the flow, Ryanair, a very profitable airline, on the other hand announced increased profits at the end of May on the back of what its CEO Michael O’Leary noted was ‘improving our customer experience’. The airlines, remarkably, do not seem to appreciate that liberties taken by their staff, deplaning by force, shockingly rude passenger interactions and so on are now recorded on smartphones and broadcast over the internet. They are viewed over and over, like a slow-motion train crash; industry self-destruction porn. Politicians too cannot look away. In the US House of Representatives, a body of regulators never slow to seize upon potential vote winners, at least four bills have been introduced to address the involuntary deplaning of passengers. Gratifyingly, these proposals tick both the boxes for perfect pieces of grandstanding legislation: over-lengthy names and silly acronyms. The BOARD Fairly Act – ‘Bumping on Overbooked Airplanes Requires Dealing Fairly Act’ – aims to prohibit airlines from refusing to carry passengers who hold confirmed reservations – not merely passengers who have been issued a boarding pass. Similarly, the Hands Off Passengers Act aims to prohibit the involuntary deplaning or denial of boarding of any passenger holding a confirmed, reserved seat on an oversold flight, if the purpose of the deplaning or denied boarding is to accommodate a member of the air carrier’s flight crew or staff. The SEAT Act of 2017 – ‘Secure Equity in Airline Transportation Act of 2017’ – unlike its title, is a bit more precise. Normally, priority rules are used for determining which passenger is denied boarding on an over booked flight. The SEAT Act aims to prevent the application of those rules to passengers who have already boarded an aircraft. In the same vein, the SAFE SEAT Act – ‘Saving All Flyers from Ejection and Securing Everyone’s Access to Travel’ – seeks to ensure that air carriers ‘resolve all issues relating to overbooking of a flight prior to beginning boarding for that flight.’ It tests the imagination to ponder that air carriers must be told this. But the SAFE SEAT Act goes further. It aims to prohibit the use of force against passengers unless necessary for safety and security reasons. Airlines need to be told that they cannot use force against passengers without good cause? The US Senate has got in on the act too. After all, even US Senators have constituents. The TICKETS Act – ‘Transparency Improvements and Compensation to Keep Every Ticketholder Safe’ Act of 2017 – is more comprehensive than its House counterparts. It states that a passenger cannot be deplaned without his or her consent unless there is a security or safety risk. It also suggests a cap on over booking. The Canadian government too, is getting in on the legislative action. In May, the Federal Ministry of Transportation introduced a Passenger Bill of Rights that proposes, amongst other things, to prohibit denial of boarding and deplaning. Airlines should feel lucky that it has not gone so far as to prohibit overbooking. In the meantime, in Europe, the Commission presses on with their intention to reform Reg 261, whilst the European Court of Justice performs judicial gymnastics to twist the language of the regulation as broadly as humanly possible, if not beyond, to ensure that no passenger claim is excluded by the antediluvian, ossified regulatory framework the industry continues to support as a tenet of faith. Over and above 261 reform MEPs are circling the wagons. It has come to this. This is madness, but it is the madness of the airlines that needs examination. The airlines’ are motivating lawmakers around the world to act to prohibit over booking and other perfectly rational economic behaviour because they see perfectly rational political yardage in doing so. That this is against the interests of the airlines goes without saying, but does beg an explanation as to why the airlines let it get to this point? The proposed rules do not legislate seat pitch, or sandwich thickness, or the ratio of cashews to peanuts in first class, but they do seek some small measure of human dignity. Maybe they should chat to Michael O’Leary.Trackback from your site.