Source: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2008/12/08/E8-28527/enhancing-airline-passenger-protections
Timestamp: 2017-10-18 00:41:43
Document Index: 334074975

Matched Legal Cases: ['arts 234', 'art 259', '§\u2009234', 'art 259', '§\u2009259', '§\u2009399']

A Proposed Rule by the Transportation Department on 12/08/2008
73 FR 74585
74585-74603 (19 pages)
E8-28527
https://www.federalregister.gov/d/E8-28527 https://www.federalregister.gov/d/E8-28527
Start Preamble Start Printed Page 74586
○ Federal eRulemaking Portal: go to http://www.regulations.gov and follow the online instructions for submitting written comments. A standard form has been created for those who wish to use it in submitting comments.
○ Mail: Docket Management Facility, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Ave., SE., Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
○ Hand Delivery or Courier: West Building Ground Floor, Room W12-140, 1200 New Jersey Ave., SE., between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, except Federal Holidays.
On November 15, 2007, the Department of Transportation (DOT or Department) issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) in Docket DOT-OST-2007-22 entitled “Enhancing Airline Passenger Protections.” This ANPRM was published in the Federal Register five days later. See “Department of Transportation, Office of the Secretary, 14 CFR Parts 234, 253, 259, and 399 [Docket No. DOT-OST-2007-0022], RIN No. 2105-AD72, 72 FR 65233 et seq. (November 20, 2007).'' We announced in the ANPRM that we were considering adopting or amending rules to address several concerns, including, among others, the problems consumers face when aircraft sit for hours on airport tarmacs and the growing incidence of flight delays. We observed that beginning in December of 2006 and continuing through the early spring of 2007, weather problems had kept more than a few aircraft sitting for long hours on airport tarmacs, causing the stranded passengers undue discomfort and inconvenience. We observed further that passengers were also being harmed by the high incidence of less extreme flight delays: In the first seven months of 2007, only 72.23 percent of flights arrived on time, a lower percentage than for the same period in any of the previous 12 years. (On-time arrival performance remains problematic: It has improved only slightly since the issuance of the ANPRM. For the first five months of 2008, it was the second worst for these months in 14 years.) We acknowledged that the industry and interested observers have attributed both the marathon tarmac waits and the epidemic of flight delays to a number of factors besides weather, such as capacity and operational constraints, for example. Some of these are being addressed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and certain airports in other contexts, but in the meantime, we decided to explore the adoption of regulatory measures to address passengers' concerns.
Thus, citing our authority and responsibility under 49 U.S.C. 41712, in concert with 49 U.S.C. 40101(a)(4) and 40101(a)(9) and 49 U.S.C. 41702, to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive practices and to ensure safe and adequate service in air transportation, we called for comment on seven potential measures. We intended these measures to ameliorate difficulties that passengers experience without creating undue burdens for the carriers. We also posed questions for commenters to answer and invited them Start Printed Page 74587to suggest other measures to address the problems at issue.
The ANPRM: We stated in the ANPRM that we were considering requiring every certificated or commuter air carrier[1] that operates domestic scheduled passenger service using any aircraft with more than 30 passenger seats to develop and implement a contingency plan for lengthy tarmac delays. (This plan would apply to all of the carrier's flights, including those involving aircraft with 30 or fewer seats.) Each covered carrier would be required to incorporate its plan in its contract of carriage. This would enable passengers to sue for breach of contract in the event that a carrier fails to adhere to its plan. Each plan would have to include at least the following: The maximum tarmac delay that the carrier will permit, the amount of time on the tarmac that triggers the plan's terms, assurance of adequate food, water, lavatory facilities, and medical attention, if needed, while the aircraft remains on the tarmac, assurance of sufficient resources to implement the plan, and assurance that the plan has been coordinated with airport authorities at medium and large hub airports. Carriers would also be required to make their complete contracts of carriage, including contingency plans, available on their Web sites and to retain for two years the following information for any ground delay that either triggers their contingency plans or lasts at least four hours: The length of the delay, the cause of the delay, and the actions taken to minimize hardships for passengers. Our proposal did not contemplate that the Department would review or approve the plans, but we stated that the Department would consider failure to comply with any of the above requirements—including implementing the plan as written—to be an unfair and deceptive practice within the meaning of 49 U.S.C. 41712 and therefore subject to enforcement action.
The Comments: CAPBOR and its members believe that this proposal does not go far enough. They maintain that the Department should establish minimum standards for contingency plans via regulation and should also review and approve the plans rather than allow each carrier the leeway to set what might well be overly lax standards. They also maintain that the Department should monitor carriers' performance under their plans. In their view, requiring carriers to incorporate their contingency plans into their contracts of carriage will not protect passengers, because as a practical matter these contracts cannot be enforced. They do support publication of contingency plans in contracts of carriage, however, and they argue that these plans should be airport-specific to account for differences among airports. CAPBOR and its members contend that because an airport's concessions are often closed by the time that a flight is cancelled and passengers allowed to deplane, we Start Printed Page 74588should require airports to contract with their vendors to require that concessions remain open during lengthy tarmac delays. They request that in any rule proposed or adopted, we refer to “potable water” and “operable lavatories” rather than simply “water” and “lavatory facilities,” respectively, and that we include a requirement for adequate ventilation.
ATA reports that carriers already have both general contingency plans and airport-specific contingency plans. It states that carriers do not intend to publish the latter, and it recommends that the Department allow them flexibility in how they notify consumers Start Printed Page 74589of the former. Most carriers, it assumes, would post their contingency plans on their Web sites. ATA opposes requiring carriers to include their contingency plans in their contracts of carriage and in fact doubts that the Department has the authority to do this in the aftermath of deregulation. As a practical matter, ATA claims, inclusion of carriers' general contingency plans in their contracts of carriage would require the deletion of technical and operational terms that do not belong in a contract and the addition of qualifying statements so that carriers would retain the flexibility to make different operational decisions depending on the facts of the situation, including extraordinary circumstances. ATA also opposes requiring incorporation of contingency plans in carriers' contracts of carriage because this would expose them to litigation under inconsistent standards among the states and among foreign countries. It predicts that standards would fluctuate as carriers took steps to minimize their exposure. ATA opposes the proposed recordkeeping requirement as redundant of other existing and proposed regulations.
Of the travel agency associations, ASTA strongly favors requiring carriers to adopt contingency plans and requiring the incorporation of these plans in air carriers' contracts of carriage, but it believes that the proposal in the ANPRM does not go far enough. ASTA implies, without explanation, that even with the plans incorporated in the contracts of carriage, they will not be enforceable unless the Department reviews them. ASTA suggests that any rule that we adopt “require very specific plans in the general mode of ‘if this happens, we will take the following specific steps to assure proper care of passengers.’ ” ASTA also supports the recordkeeping requirement and suggests that it be triggered by a delay of three hours. Also, ASTA believes that carriers should be required to coordinate not only with airport authorities at medium and large hub airports but with the authorities at “all primary airports.” ITSA did not address this proposal.
In adopting this approach, we are tentatively rejecting the suggestions of those consumers and groups who believe that the Department should set minimum standards for the contingency plans rather than allow each carrier to set its own standards based on its particular circumstances. We continue to be of the tentative view based on the information available to us that the Department should not substitute its judgment in this area for that of the air carriers. Nevertheless, we ask interested Start Printed Page 74590persons to comment on whether any final rule that we may adopt should include either or both of the following: A uniform standard for the time interval that would trigger the terms of carriers' contingency plans and a uniform standard for the time interval after which carriers would be required to allow passengers to deplane. Commenters who support the adoption of either or both requirements by rulemaking should propose specific amounts of time and state why they believe these intervals to be appropriate.
Of the individual commenters, one agrees in principle with the proposal Start Printed Page 74591but voices concern over the cost of creating a position at each airport for responding to complaints, reasoning that this would not affect delays. Another voices concern that not all consumers have access to the Internet and favors requiring travel agents to provide the information on where to complain as well.
Proposed Rule: We have decided to propose a rule along the lines set forth in the ANPRM, and again we invite comment from all interested persons. Specifically, our proposed new rule, 14 CFR part 259, includes a requirement Start Printed Page 74592that every certificated and commuter air carrier that operates scheduled domestic passenger service using any aircraft with a design capacity of more than 30 passenger seats respond to consumer problems concerning its scheduled flights in three ways. First, at its systems operations center and at each airport dispatch center, the carrier would have to designate an employee who monitors the effects of flight delays, flight cancellations, and lengthy tarmac delays on passengers and has input into decisions on which flights to cancel and which to delay the longest. We anticipate that these responsibilities would be borne by current employees in addition to their other responsibilities; we do not intend for any carrier to have to hire new employees to comply with this regulation. Second, on its Web site, on all e-ticket confirmations, and, upon request, at each ticket counter and gate, the carrier would have to inform consumers how to file a complaint by providing the name, address, telephone number, and e-mail or Web-form address of the appropriate person or office. Carriers would be given 180 days to modify their Web sites and reformat their e-tickets before this requirement would take effect. Third, for each complaint filed, the carrier would have to acknowledge receipt to the consumer within 30 days and provide a substantive response within 60 days of receiving it. By “substantive response,” we mean a response that addresses the specific problems about which the consumer has complained. We are not proposing that this provision cover public charter operations. Complaints about public charter flights are filed not with the carrier but with the Public Charter Operator; also, the carriers operating these flights may not have employees at each airport that they serve.
Delta, the only carrier that commented individually on this issue, takes the position that the Department should use the standard proposed as a rebuttable presumption that a flight violates 49 U.S.C. 41712 rather than as a rule. In Delta's view, the Department must also consider in each case whether the carrier has intended to deceive the public or compete unfairly, because flights may fail to operate on time for an extended period for many reasons that are beyond the carrier's control. For example, if a flight performs erratically due to unpredictable delays attributable to problems in the national air traffic control system, the carrier cannot solve the problem by extending the block time to make the flight operate on time more consistently: This would make the flight arrive early when the system functions properly, which in turn could cause disruptions and tarmac delays at the destination airport. Another example would be a period of harsh and unexpected weather arriving just when a carrier thought that it had solved the problems that had made a flight late. Delta warns that adopting a rigid standard for enforcement could result in carriers' cancelling flights or arbitrarily retiming them significantly, thus creating “new” flights, solely to avoid enforcement action and even though they might otherwise have eventually solved the scheduling problems. Delta warns that this approach is in turn likely to cause passengers more inconvenience than would continuing to try to address the real issues affecting a flight's performance. In cases where the actual individual delays of a given flight are relatively small—say 16 minutes, for example—passengers fare better if the flight is maintained than if it is cancelled altogether.Start Printed Page 74593
We further invite interested persons to comment on an alternate definition of a chronically late flight as one that is operated at least 30 times in a calendar quarter and that arrives at least 30 minutes late at least 60 percent of the time. While this latter approach could theoretically yield more benefits for consumers, we are concerned that adopting this more stringent standard could lead to a large number of flight cancellations and possibly even the elimination of service to some communities. Also, we invite comment on whether we should adopt an even stricter definition favored by the Department's Inspector General: A flight that is cancelled or delayed 30 minutes or more at least 40 percent of the time. The Inspector General calculated in 2006 that using this definition would yield 5,369 chronically delayed flights, a very high number (Follow-Up Review: Start Printed Page 74594Performance of U.S. Airlines in Implementing Selected Provisions of the Airline Customer Service Commitment, Report Number AV-2007-012, Issued November 21, 2006, at page 5, footnote 8, and Attachment, page 17). Because we are concerned that any consequential increase in enforcement responsibilities might require the diversion of resources from other aviation compliance activities, commenters should assess both the benefits that this definition would engender and the costs that it would entail. Of course, regardless of which definition we adopt, we always have the authority to take enforcement action against flights that do not meet the definition but that appear to involve unrealistic scheduling and thus to constitute unfair and deceptive practices and unfair methods of competition within the meaning of 49 U.S.C. 41712.
As for members of the industry, Delta, again the only carrier that commented individually on this issue, agrees that giving interested consumers information on historical on-time performance is good customer service, but the carrier strongly objects to detailed regulation of how this information is provided. In Delta's view, carriers should be free to decide what to tell consumers and how. On its Web site, Delta currently makes available the percentage of operations that were on time for any flight for which it is required to file on-time performance data with the Department. Once a consumer has selected dates and Start Printed Page 74595routes, the screen for flight availability and pricing provides access to the following information via a click on the flight number: equipment type, flight duration and distance, and on-time performance for the previous month. In Delta's view, its practice meets consumers' reasonable wishes for information on a flight's historical performance, and the other categories of information that the Department proposes to require are unnecessary. Delta also contends that requiring carriers to change their Web sites to provide this additional information would impose substantial costs without yielding offsetting benefits for consumers. Unlike on-time performance data, Delta maintains, the data needed to deliver the additional information are not already collected, and Delta's existing software would not support collecting them or displaying and highlighting the results.
Of the travel agency associations, ASTA opposes this proposal as unworkable and unhelpful to consumers. Noting that current Start Printed Page 74596technology could not deliver on-time data for display by online travel agencies until the first week of the month following the deadline for reporting the data to the Department, which itself is 15 days after the applicable reporting month, ASTA maintains that “[w]hat happened on a flight two months ago (on average) is not particularly instructive for what flights will do today, especially if the seasonality factor is considered.” ASTA agrees with Delta and ATA that the costs of reprogramming to comply with the proposal would be significant and that the reprogramming could complicate the web displays of all online sellers of air transportation. If the Department does adopt a rule requiring disclosure of flights that are late more than a certain percentage of time, ASTA believes that the percentage should be the same as the percentage the Department uses to define flights that are chronically delayed. In addition, ASTA believes that if the Department uses enforcement aggressively against chronically late flights, carriers may be expected to take steps to avoid enforcement, which in turn would lower the incidence of late flights and make the proposed rule superfluous.
Proposed Rule: We have decided to propose a rule mostly along the lines set forth in the ANPRM, and we invite comment from all interested persons. Specifically, we propose to amend 14 CFR 234.11 to require air carriers that report on-time performance to publish the following information on their web sites for each listed flight regarding its performance during the latest reported month: the percentage of arrivals that were on time (i.e., within 15 minutes of scheduled arrival time), the percentage of arrivals that were more than 30 minutes late, with special highlighting if the flight was late more than 50 percent of the time, and the percentage of cancellations. Carriers will be able to comply with the rule in one of the following ways: by showing the percentage of on-time arrivals on the initial listing of flights and disclosing the remaining information on a later page at some stage before the consumer buys a ticket, or by showing all of the required information via a hyperlink on the page with the initial listing of flights. To ensure that all carriers are posting information covering the same month, we are proposing to require that they load the information for the previous month into their internal reservations systems between the 20th and the 23rd days of the current month. (This latter requirement would also apply to § 234.11(a), the existing requirement that carriers disclose on-time performance information during reservation calls, ticketing discussions or transactions, or flight inquiries.) We invite comment from carriers on whether they would find it more convenient to load the information overnight on the third Saturday of the month than between the 20th and 23rd days as proposed.
Of the individual commenters, one does not think that consumers would use this information to make booking Start Printed Page 74597decisions, because they base their decisions on price, availability, and schedule. This commenter also does not think that the proposal would lessen flight delays. Another individual agrees in general with the proposal but is concerned that the same information should be available to consumers who do not use the Internet.
No Proposal: We have decided not to propose a rule requiring the publication of complaint data. Both the comments and our own further consideration have persuaded us that these data would be of little or no value to consumers. Specifically, consumers have access to a tabulation of complaints filed with the Department in the Air Travel Consumer Report, available on our Aviation Consumer Protection Division's Web site (http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/​). In our experience with disability and discrimination complaints, consumers' complaints to the Department provide a reliable indication both of the types of complaints that individual carriers receive and, in relative terms, of which carriers receive the most complaints. Also, although carriers may receive 20 or 30 times as many complaints as the Department does, the Department's consumer complaint data are not subject to the disparate and subjective counting and coding that would inevitably occur under the original proposal.
Delta opposes the proposal. It believes on-time performance information to be of little use to consumers as a predictor of any given flight's performance on any given day, and it reports that consumers almost never request it. Delta doubts that on-time performance information for international flights will be useful to the Department for enforcement purposes, particularly flights to the United States, because factors that affect performance are often beyond a carrier's control, and because carriers often have little leeway to adjust schedules due to local airport restrictions, time zones, and other features of international aviation. In addition, Delta contends Start Printed Page 74598that it would be unfair to impose the proposed requirement on U.S. carriers without holding foreign carriers to the same standards, which in turn would pose a risk that foreign authorities would retaliate by imposing burdensome requirements on U.S. carriers operating abroad, thus raising the costs of international flights.
No proposal: We have decided for several reasons not to propose a rule requiring the reporting of on-time performance for international flights. First, as some carriers report, this information is already available on the internet. Second, many international flights involve slot-controlled airports, which means that the carriers operating them already have an incentive to meet their schedules. Third, we do not have sufficient evidence of a problem to justify the costs of reporting on-time performance of international flights, and on the many international routes that are only served by one carrier, access to on-time performance data would not affect consumers' choices. Fourth, as some carriers contend, a reporting requirement could make carriers less inclined to hold flights for incoming connections, which would create hardships for passengers in city-pairs served once a day or less. Fifth, the operating environment for international flights is much less homogeneous than that for domestic flights: For example, a variety of transoceanic weather patterns and long stage lengths can affect operating times. Finally, a reporting requirement, particularly one based on Start Printed Page 74599carrier size, could raise issues regarding carriers' “fair and equal opportunity to compete” if the requirement differentiated between U.S. and foreign carriers or among foreign carriers.
Proposed Rule: We have decided to propose a rule along the lines set forth in the ANPRM but with one significant addition, and again we invite comment from all interested persons. Specifically, our proposed new rule, 14 CFR part 259, would require every U.S. air carrier that accounts for at least one percent of domestic scheduled passenger revenue to adopt a customer service plan for its scheduled service and any public charter flights that it sells directly to the public and to adhere to this plan's terms, but unlike the proposal in the ANPRM, this proposed rule would require carriers to incorporate their customer service plans in their contracts of carriage. This incorporation would enable passengers to sue for breach of contract in the event that a carrier failed to adhere to its plan. We are proposing that this rule include public charter flights because the operating carrier is the party responsible for ensuring that charter passengers receive necessary and promised services. The rule would require each carrier to audit its own adherence to its plan annually and to make the results of its audits available for the Department's review for two years. At a minimum, each plan would have to address the same subjects as ATA's Customers First Customer Service Commitment (http://www.airlines.org/​customerservice/​passengers/​Customers_​First.htm): Offering the lowest fare available, notifying consumers of known delays, cancellations, and diversions, delivering baggage on time, allowing reservations to be held or cancelled, providing prompt ticket refunds, properly accommodating disabled and special-needs passengers, meeting customers' essential needs during long on-aircraft delays, handling “bumped” passengers in cases of oversales with fairness and consistency, disclosing travel itinerary, cancellation policies, frequent flyer rules, and aircraft configuration, Start Printed Page 74600ensuring good customer service from code-share partners, and improving response to customer complaints. The provision on meeting customers' essential needs during long on-aircraft delays would be required at least to refer to the carrier's contingency plan for lengthy tarmac delays. Failure to do any of the above would be considered an unfair and deceptive practice within the meaning of 49 U.S.C. 41712 and subject to enforcement action.
This NPRM proposes three new collections of information that would require approval by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13, 49 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.) Start Printed Page 74601Under the Paperwork Reduction Act, before an agency submits a proposed collection of information to OMB for approval, it must publish a document in the Federal Register providing notice of and a 60-day comment period on, and otherwise consult with members of the public and affected agencies concerning, each proposed collection of information.
The Department invites interested persons to submit comments on any aspect of each of these two information collections, including the following: (1) The necessity and utility of the information collection, (2) the accuracy of the estimate of the burden, (3) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected, and (4) ways to minimize the burden of collection without reducing the quality of the collected information. Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized or included, or both, in the request for OMB approval of these information collections. Start Printed Page 74602
Contingency plan for lengthy tarmac delays.
Customer service plan.
Response to consumer problems.
§ 259.3.
Start Printed Page 74603
§ 399.81
Unrealistic or deceptive scheduling.