Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Do We Need a Passenger Bill Of Rights?

Think about this for a minute. Do we really need a document to state what should be common sense? Is traveling on an airplane equivalent to being in a foreign country? The whole passenger bill of rights argument stems from poor judgement on the airlines part in select incidents where passengers had every right to be angry and complain. But the number of times this happens compared to the number of flights that happen makes it such a small percentage that its easier to deal with each case of poor judgement as it happens. Enacting a law could actually be detrimental simply by people interpreting how they see fit. It can easily get out of hand and people try to use it to their advantage to get compensated for things that are out the control of the airlines. Take for example the flight that was stranded last February for 10 hours. Yes the airline was wrong to force the people to sit on the plane the entire time, but the reason for the delay could be used against airlines even if they did do everything within their power to see to the well being of the passengers. I am not saying this is what will happen, but it certainly could. The airline industry has a long way to go to fix their problems but a document is not the way to do it.

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