Airlines contracts have always been crystal-clear about what’s owed to passengers when weather prevents a flight from leaving: nada.
But after a series of weather-related delays over the holidays –
including one flight from San Francisco that was diverted to Austin, where it sat on the tarmac for eight hours — people seem to be rethinking the rules.
Now it’s important to separate policy from rules in this discussion. An airline policy, for example, can address how long an aircraft can wait on the tarmac before returning to a gate. If you’re an executive at American Airlines right now, you are in all likelihood revising your policy to make sure no passengers ever have to wait on a plane for eight hours.
But I’ve checked with readers after the holiday delay fiasco, and a sizeable portion believes that a change in the airline contract is in order. The contract addresses your airline’s legal obligations to transport you, and it addresses issues such as mechanical delays and involuntary denied boardings.
The change is small, but important. If your delay happens in your originating city — that is to say, the airport you start your trip in — then the airline owes you nothing. Go home. Wait for the next flight.
However, if there’s a weather delay in the city in which you’re connecting, the airline should provide you with certain compensation based on the length of your delay. If it’s a few hours, maybe a phone card and a meal voucher. If it’s overnight, then a hotel voucher and transportation to and from the hotel.
“The weather isn’t the airlines’ fault,” reader Josephine Nesbitt wrote to me. “But then, not many people have that much disposable income to take care of unexpected hotel and food charges. Not to mention the money they are losing by not getting to their destination. Somehow we need to equalize the pain.”
Why should airlines begin compensating stranded passengers in a connecting city? One good reason is that passengers aren’t responsible for the hub-and-spoke system that forced their plane to land in the connecting city. If theirs had been a point-to-point flight, there would have been no weather delay. The airlines need to take some responsibility for sending their flights through snowed-in Denver or foggy Chicago.
Granted, saddling the money-losing airlines with yet another rule that could cost them millions may not be good business. But it is good customer service.
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