Profile: akpagb
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What's Happening Now
August 5, 2010 1:40 pm
Thank you for your comment. You mentioned that all airlines should have a tarmac contingency plan. Are the there any other elements you think all such plans should have?
August 6, 2010 8:28 pm
I too have issues with the lack of healthy appealing food on flights. I have many food allergies (including peanuts) and have trouble getting items through TSA security. It’s a real pain.
I’m flying in the morning and I’m trying to find things I can bring through that will allow me to eat healthfully on a cross country flight.
I wish they’d let me bring my portable protein drinks with me.
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I support the following:
Uniform time limit on tarmac delays for all commercial flights.
Plan requirement should include all commercial flights – I’d like to see cut-off lower than 30-passenger planes, and certainly not higher.
Airports should also be required to have their own tarmac contingency plans.
If the plane returns to the gate within the 3 hour limit, passengers should be allowed to deplane unless the airline has legitimate basis for believing the total delay will not exceed 3 hours. There should be sanctions if airline underestimates the time remaining more than 10% of the time, or if airline fails to admit to passengers it has no reliable estimate. Passengers should always be allowed to deplane if the toilets aren’t functioning or if the airline can’t… more »
Question – if the tarmac plans are made part of the contract of carriage, how could it be worse for consumers? What non-mandatory promises do airlines now make that favor consumers? « less
I don’t think the airlines should have to report delays of less than 30 minutes (we assume most flights will be late in leaving) but they should have to give updates faster than within 30 minutes of the information becoming available. That would at least give passengers time to eat, go to the bathroom, buy extra water, rather than hanging at the gate mistakenly thinking the flight will board any minute, and also allow people planning to pick up arriving passengers without parking to better time their arrival.
Airlines (and travel websites) should be required to include all taxes and mandatory fees in advertised ticket prices. They should be required to individually and clearly list all “optional” fees. I don’t think listing an all-option-included total price is particularly helpful because most travelers I know no longer choose all the options. Baggage fees should be stated very prominently.
Passengers should not be charged a baggage fee higher than that of the ticket-issuing airline on a code share flight. The ticket issuing airline should be required to clearly advise passengers in advance – at the time of ticket purchase – of any differences between its rules and the partner’s rules.
The rules should apply to all commercial flights, domestic or international.
While something should be done to protect severe allergy-sufferers, they constitute a tiny portion of the population and it should not be necessary to ban all peanut products from all flights – surely some limited zone with advance notice should suffice. My personal concern – I have a problem with low blood sugar, and peanut butter is one of the few good, transportable sources of protein that does not need refrigeration. Because there is now generally either no food at all or at least no healthful, appetizing food on most flights, and with the possibility of long tarmac delays and storm detours, I always bring with me one or more sandwiches of peanut butter on whole grain bread. On a long flight, I could have real problems if they are banned.