BEFORE THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION WASHINGTON, D.C. ) In the Matter of ) ) ENHANCING AIRLINE PASSENGER ) Docket DOT-OST PROTECTIONS ) )

Transcription

1 BEFORE THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION WASHINGTON, D.C. ) In the Matter of ) ) ENHANCING AIRLINE PASSENGER ) Docket DOT-OST PROTECTIONS ) ) COMMENTS OF THE REGIONAL AIRLINE ASSOCIATION Comments with respect to this document should be addressed to: Roger Cohen President Regional Airline Association 2025 M Street, NW Suite 800 Washington, DC cohen@raa.org January 22, 2008

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 1. Contingency Plans and Contracts of Carriage Monitoring Passenger Delays; Complaint Procedures Chronically Delayed Flights Publication of Delay Data Publication of Complaint Data On-Time Reporting For International Flights Customer Service Plans and Audits... 13

3 BEFORE THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION WASHINGTON, D.C. ) In the Matter of ) ) ENHANCING AIRLINE PASSENGER ) Docket DOT-OST PROTECTIONS ) ) COMMENTS OF THE REGIONAL AIRLINE ASSOCIATION Nothing is more important to the Regional Airline Association ( RAA ) members 1 than providing the best possible experience for the passengers they transport. Regional airlines and their 61,000 employees work very hard every day to provide safe, efficient, timely transportation to the traveling public. Normally, they succeed. On those occasions when, for reasons mostly beyond their control, customer concerns arise, regional airlines are committed to resolving those 1 Aerolitoral, Air Canada Jazz, Air Serv International, Air Wisconsin Airlines, AirNet Systems, American Eagle Airlines, Atlantic Southeast Airlines, Big Sky, Cape Air, Caribbean Sun Airlines, Chautauqua Airlines, Colgan Air, Comair, Commutair, Compass Airlines, Empire Airlines, Era Aviation, ExpressJet, FedEx, Flight Options, LLC, GoJet, Grand Canyon Airlines, Great Lakes Airlines, Gulfstream International Airlines, Horizon Air, IBC Airways, Island Air, Mesa Airlines, Mesaba Airlines, New England Airlines, Piedmont Airlines, Pinnacle Airlines, Inc., PSA Airlines, Republic Airlines, Salmon Air, Scenic Airlines, Shuttle America Airlines, SkyBus Airlines, Inc., Skyway Airlines, SkyWest Airlines, Trans States Airlines and US Airways Express.

4 Page 2 issues and look forward to working with the Department to enhance the airline passenger experience. As the Department evaluates proposals to enhance the consumers airline experience and implement solutions, the unique relationship between most regional airlines subject to the proposals contained in Enhancing Airline Passenger Protections, 72 Federal Register 223, Tuesday, November 20, 2007 at (ANPRM hereafter) and their passengers must be considered to ensure that only regulations that would truly ameliorate some of the problems facing passengers without creating undue burdens for the carriers and strike the proper balance between protecting consumers and affording carriers as much leeway as possible to choose their responses to... rapid developments (ANPRM at 65234) are adopted and that any regulations adopted can be implemented effectively by the entity being regulated. The overwhelming majority (estimated at upwards of 90%) of regional airline passengers are flown under seamless ticketing, marketing, scheduling and passenger processing/handling arrangements controlled by a major airline partner which enters into contracts of carriage with the passengers. Under these arrangements, the major airline establishes the schedules to be operated and the aircraft type to be flown; handles the advertising, marketing, booking and ticketing for the flights; enters contracts of carriage with the passengers and determines the full range of passenger amenities everything from whether apples or oranges will be served in snacks to how passengers are handled in the event of delays, diversions and cancellations. 2 2 Some regional airline passengers are carried pursuant to codeshare pro-rate agreements in which a major carrier s code is placed on a flight operated and scheduled by a regional airline and the revenue is prorated between the major airline and the regional airline, (continued )

5 Page 3 Although regional airlines are responsible for safe operation of their flights and can cancel or divert them for safety reasons, most delays, diversions and cancellations are determined by the FAA or the major airline partners, not by the regional airlines. Experience has shown that regional airline flights are the first to be subject to FAA ground stops and cancelled by the major airlines because they typically carry fewer passengers than other flights operated with larger aircraft. Since no airline wants to offend its passengers, much less be the subject of derogatory late-night television monologues, airlines are becoming ever more sensitive to consumer concerns. Regional airlines and their major airline codeshare partners have been working together to apply lessons learned from problems that have arisen as a result of severe weather in the recent past and to adopt creative solutions that will benefit passengers in the future. Creative solutions by airlines and their personnel on the front lines assisting passengers are the best way to improve the system. To the extent the Department can encourage these solutions without restricting carrier initiatives and improve the Department s own systems to enhance the passenger experience, the Department s efforts are more than welcome. The Department must be wary, however, of imposing regulatory requirements that would limit airline flexibility and creativity and deflect airline employees from assisting passengers to comply with regulatory requirements. In addition to imposing additional regulatory requirements on airlines, the Department should recognize that regional airline flights in particular compete with rail and bus surface (continued) while some regional airline service is provided by regional airlines entirely independent of any major airline relationship.

6 Page 4 transportation modes which face similar challenges from weather and congestion and should be held to similar standards and comparable regulatory requirements to ensure that a competitive imbalance is not created by the Department s action burdening regional airlines unnecessarily. To tailor proposals to enhance consumer air travel experiences by maximizing the benefits to consumers, minimizing the burdens on regional airlines, encouraging airlines and their employees as they work to assist passengers in times of crisis and apply creative solutions and placing responsibility for consumer protection with the airline that can effectively accept it, RAA urges the Department to: (1) Maximize the airlines flexibility to adopt contingency plans reflecting their own circumstances, capabilities and passenger service standards, apply any contingency plan and recordkeeping requirements to the airline that has a contract of carriage with the passenger, 3 and require that other critical parties such as the FAA and the airports to adopt contingency plans for dealing with airline operating requirements and passengers stranded in terminals or on tarmacs, respectively, as well. (2) Allow airlines to monitor the effects of flight delays, flight cancellations, and lengthy tarmac delays on passengers and provide related input on flight cancellations and delays by whatever means they choose and to provide contact information for submission of written (hard copy or ) complaints to the carrier on websites where air transportation is sold and, upon request, at gates and ticket counters, and to reply to such complaints within 30 days of 3 The airline having the contract of carriage with passengers can coordinate with its regional airline partners on implementation of its contingency plan and reporting requirements.

7 Page 5 receipt, with such requirements applicable to whatever airline has the contract of carriage with the passengers. (3) The Department may define chronically delayed flights reported to DOT but it should not consider them an unfair and deceptive practice and take enforcement action as proposed, if it does, however, the requirements should apply to the airline that determines the schedules and enters contracts of carriage with passengers when the scheduling airline and the operating airline are not the same. (4) Require airlines that report delay information to DOT and sell tickets to consumers to provide delay and cancellation data as they do today and require the Department to continue to make available data reported to the Department for specific flights without burdening consumers and airlines with additional information displays and extended reservation calls to provide information consumers have not requested. (5) Require airlines to provide on their ticketing websites information on, or links to, the Department s website for consumer complaint data by carrier for comparison among carriers but not require individual airlines to post their own complaint data on their ticketing websites. (6) Continue to limit on-time performance reporting to domestic flights, or, if the requirements are expanded to international flights, apply them only to the largest airlines in the largest markets. (7) Reject the proposal to require all carriers operating aircraft with more than 30 seats to adopt Customer Service Plans and audit compliance with them because the proposal would convert a voluntary program by the largest airlines into a mandatory program with significant audit expenses, and many of the current Customer Service Plan commitments would

8 Page 6 be inappropriate if they were applied to airlines that do not market or sell air transportation directly to passengers or enter contracts of carriage with them. RAA states as follows in support of its positions: 1. Contingency Plans and Contracts of Carriage The proposal to require all airlines using any aircraft with 30 passenger seats to develop contingency plans for long ground delays affecting any flight and to incorporate the plan into its contracts of carriage fails to reflect the unique circumstances affecting regional airline operations. For instance, regional airlines operating flights for major airline partners will be subject to direction from the major airlines regarding the acceptable duration of a ground delay, the provision of food and water to passengers, 4 and in many instances the resources available to implement any such plans. A regional airline operating flights for two, three or more major airline partners will have significantly different directions on these key passenger service issues from different major airlines. Moreover, in such operations the major airline partner, not the regional airline, enters the contract of carriage with the passenger. Finally, the operating environment for regional airlines varies widely between their major airline partners hub airports and the 452 far smaller but equally important airports served only by regional airlines. Since regional airlines operating services for major airlines that market and sell the regional services will control neither the duration of tarmac delays nor the amenities provided to passengers and do not enter contracts of carriage with the passengers, if contingency plans are to be required at all they should be required of the major airlines with implementation to be 4 Constraints affecting regional aircraft limit the food, water and lavatory facilities available to passengers, and determining the adequacy of food, water and lavatory facilities without advance guidance from the Department would be difficult at best.

9 Page 7 arranged by the major airline and its regional airline partners on all flights actually operated with aircraft with more than 30 passenger seats. 5 Regional airlines provide service at airports ranging from the largest hubs to the smallest outposts. Among the 635 airports served by regional airlines, 452 are relatively small airports served only by regional airlines. Although regional airlines generally experience fewer long tarmac delays than major airlines, the majority of tarmac delays likely to be experienced by regional airlines and the passengers they carry will occur at major hub airports, where facilities and flight sequencing are determined by the major airlines and FAA, not by regional airlines. At smaller airports served only by regional airlines, the ability to return passengers to gates rather than enduring long onboard delays is significantly greater, but resources available at the airport may be fewer. 6 Rather than requiring that airlines coordinate with medium and large hub airports, however, the Department should require that such airports develop their own contingency plans for responding to long delays, diversions and weather conditions that can strand passengers at airports for long periods. Similarly, the FAA s own contingency plans for such circumstances should also be provided to, and coordinated with, all affected airlines to minimize the disruption to airline passengers. 2. Monitoring Passenger Delays; Complaint Procedures 5 6 In any event, coverage of the rule should be determined by the size of aircraft used for a particular flight rather than imposing requirements upon all flights operated by a regional airline with, for instance, dozens of 19-seat aircraft and one 34-seat aircraft. In the case of creeping groundstop delays imposed by FAA, however, regional airlines may as a practical matter be required to wait on the tarmac to ensure that their position in the queue is not lost when the delay is lifted.

10 Page 8 Monitoring the effects of flight delays, flight cancellations and lengthy tarmac delays on passengers is an extremely important function that all airlines and all airline employees are now well aware of. Circumstances vary from airline to airline and between major airlines and regional airlines, however, and each airline should be allowed to determine its own process for ensuring that the impact on passengers from delays and cancellations is considered by airline officials who make operating decisions affecting delays, diversions and cancellations. For some companies, direct contact from flight crews to operations centers may be the best procedure; for other companies, a specific consumer coordinator or a crisis management team may be appropriate. Designating a single person rather than giving all of an airline s employees a sense of responsibility for ensuring that passenger interests are taken into account when delays, diversions and cancellations are considered may well be counterproductive. For regional airlines, decisions on delays, diversions and cancellations may be made by the regional airline when safety issues are involved, by a major airline partner when passenger service standards are determinative, or by FAA when system operational considerations limit an airline s choices. While coordination between regional airlines and their major airline partners is an important component of decisions made on delays, diversions and cancellations affecting passengers, the means by which regional airlines advocate on behalf of the passengers they carry should not be circumscribed by a regulation requiring designation of a specific employee at its system operations center and each airport dispatch center, particularly since the crucial decisions are often made by the major airline partner, not the regional airline itself. U.S. airlines of all kinds are already sensitive to consumer complaints and have developed systems for advising consumers on complaint procedures and responding to complaints, and complaint resolution systems continue to be refined and enhanced. The best

11 Page 9 processes for disseminating contact information for passenger complaints may vary from airline to airline and between regional airlines and their major codeshare partners, however. Since tickets for transportation on regional airlines operating flights for codeshare partners are sold on websites provided by the major airline partners, not the regional airlines; since tickets are issued by the major airlines; and since ticket counters and gates are also often operated and staffed by the major airline partner, the proposed dissemination of information cannot be accomplished by the regional airline partners themselves. 7 Moreover, since major airlines each establish their own passenger service and complaint handling procedures throughout their systems, many of them prefer to receive all passenger complaints regarding services ticketed by the major airline partner. In such instances, when a complaint is received by the major airline and a regional airline s activities are involved, the major airline coordinates with its regional airline partner to gather facts and respond to the consumer. Airlines and their regional codeshare partners should remain free to determine whether complaints should all be sent to a central office or whether complaints should be addressed to individual airline partners and to establish appropriate policies to inform the consumer. Whatever decision is reached for submission of complaints, contact information could be reflected on websites and available upon request at ticket counters and gates, but airlines should be free to determine if complaints must be submitted in writing or by or can also be 7 Regional airlines offering service independent of major airline partners, marketing and ticketing their own services, and entering contracts of carriage with passengers would be subject to the same rules as other airlines performing the same functions. As with certain other proposals, any requirements adopted should apply to flights operated with 30 or more seats, not to operations with smaller aircraft by airlines that also operate even one aircraft with more than 30 seats.

12 Page 10 telephoned. While investigation of complaints can be difficult and time-consuming, particularly when significant weather or other events create extraordinary complaint volumes, some response within 30 days would normally be appropriate, although in many instances a simple acknowledgement of the complaint may be all that is possible within that time period. 3. Chronically Delayed Flights The Department proposes to define a chronically delayed flight as a flight operated by an airline already reporting its on-time performance information to the Department as a flight that operates at least 45 times in a calendar quarter and arrives more than 15 minutes late more than 70 percent of the time and to consider operation of such a delayed flight an unfair and deceptive practice if the flight continues to be chronically delayed during the second calendar quarter following the one in which the flight is first chronically delayed. As the Department points out, an airline that schedules flights, offers them for sale, tickets them and enters into contracts of carriage with passengers creates some expectation that flights will be operated on time to the extent feasible. Carriers that fail to meet consumer expectations will suffer in the marketplace, and the Department should rely on market forces, not enforcement actions. Regional airlines operating flights for major airline partners who schedule the flights, offer them for sale, ticket passengers and enter into contracts of carriage with passengers should not be held responsible for the creation of those expectations, however, and such regional airlines should not be subjected to any enforcement standards that may be imposed. 4. Publication of Delay Data The Department s proposal to require airlines already reporting on-time performance information to burden the reservation process and websites with requirements that information be displayed to passengers, whether they want it or not, showing for each and every listed flight

13 Page 11 displayed on a screen (thereby reducing the number of choices provided to the passenger by cluttering the screen with additional information) the percentage of arrivals that were on time, the percentage of arrivals that were more than 30 minutes late, special highlighting if the flight was late more than 50% of the time and the percentage of cancellations for the flight during the previous month. The same information would also be required on other online reservation services, and the Department has asked whether reservation agents should also be required to provide such advice orally and other types of carriers should be covered. Passengers care about accurate information on their flights, not on historic information that may well not be predictive for the passenger s own flight. Delay information from a month when weather is fine at the departure point means little in the next month if it is full of snowstorms. Subjecting passengers to information overload would only further confuse them, lengthen the time required for booking a flight, substantially increase the workloads of reservation agents and webmasters and lengthen customer wait times, all to the detriment of the passenger. Passengers who do want information regarding the past performance of their flights can secure information from the Department s consumer reports and compare the performance of flights offered by different airlines between the same points there. Airline websites typically already contain information on the previous and current day s flight performance, which is the most relevant information for the consumer as the time for travel approaches. 8 If the Department 8 Such information is typically available for all flights, while on-time performance data is reported to the Department only for flights serving certain airports. Expanding the reporting requirements to encompass all flights or to cover additional airlines would impose substantial burdens on the airlines without adequate justification.

14 Page 12 nonetheless decides that airline and other reservation websites should display information regarding historic on-time performance, such information could be provided by a link to the Department s website to be activated by those passengers who want such information rather than imposing unwanted information on travelers who would rather expedite their bookings. Since regional airlines that conduct their operations for major airline codeshare partners that market and sell air transportation on the flights do not offer reservations and ticketing services of their own, any requirements for displays of on-time performance cannot be imposed on such airlines. 5. Publication of Complaint Data Rather than requiring all airlines operating any aircraft with more than 30 seats to publish complaint data related to delays, missed connections and the failure to provide remedies to passengers affected by a delayed or canceled flight on their websites, the Department should instead encourage airlines to provide information on their websites used for ticketing passengers information on, or links to, the Department s website for consumer complaint information so passengers can access comparative information for airlines they are considering purchasing tickets from. Providing such information will provide access to more meaningful information than a single airline s information would represent without burdening the airlines or consumers with additional screen clutter and data storage and retrieval requirements. 6. On-Time Reporting For International Flights Rather than expanding the reach of on-time reporting to more airlines and international flights, the Department should be focusing on steps the Department can take through the FAA or otherwise to improve capacity at airports and in the air traffic system that could truly improve the passenger experience and reduce airline fuel consumption at the same time. If the Department

15 Page 13 nonetheless decides to expand on-time reporting to international flights, it should require such reports only at the U.S. cities for which on-time reports are currently required and an equal number of the largest foreign cities generating the most U.S. traffic. 7. Customer Service Plans and Audits The regional airlines and their 61,000 employees work hard every day to provide the best possible experience for the passengers they transport. Requiring all airlines operating any aircraft with more than 30 seats to adopt Customer Service Plans reviewed by the Department and audit compliance with them would convert a voluntary program agreed upon by 13 of the largest U.S. airlines that belong to the Air Transport Association into a mandatory program imposing significant audit expenses on the airlines least able to shoulder the financial burden. Many of the current Customer Service Plan commitments would be inappropriate for application to airlines that neither market nor sell air transportation directly to passengers nor enter contracts of carriage with them, and the major airlines that belong to the Air Transport Association have already resolved to ensure good customer service by their codeshare partners in their Customers First 12 Point Customer Service Commitment. Airlines will do far better to devote their energies to serving the traveling public rather than to preparing and auditing commitments to do so. For the reasons stated in these comments, RAA urges the Department to consider RAA s comments thoroughly, to weigh carefully the burdens of the proposals under consideration on airlines and their passengers against the limited potential benefits to consumers, and to determine the least-intrusive means of implementing any proposals made as well as the appropriate entities to be charged with implementing any new requirements imposed before issuing any further notice of proposed rulemaking on the tentative proposals made in this proceeding.

16 Page 14 Respectfully submitted, January 22, 2008 DCIWDMS: _1 Roger Cohen President Regional Airline Association