Corporate Housing Shoppers Blog – Advice, News, and More

This Fall Congress stands to vote on legislation that would allow airline passengers the right to leave a plane that has been waiting to take off for three hours or more. The bill would require airlines to provide food, water and bathrooms to passengers stranded on flights unable to take off or access a gate. Is this legislation needed? A USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Transportation Department data found that more than 200,000 domestic passengers have been confined to more than 3,000 planes for three hours or more since January 2007. The most famous and recent example is of a flight that was stranded on the tarmac overnight, while passengers complained of a total lack of food and water as well as an unclean bathroom. In 1999 airlines successfully lobbied to keep a similar bill from passing by promising to live up to voluntary customer service commitments. Clearly these were empty promises and it is time that some action was taken.