Overview
The airline industry is one of the most important to the American economy. More Americans are using air travel as a mode of transportation, making it essential to the lives of millions. The industry is currently expected to grow at a pace of two percent per year for the next twenty years. This increase growth has come at a cost to people of color and the disabled. Discrimination reports have risen from around 80 reports to 90 reports in 2019. There are also believed to be more incidents of discrimination that occur but are never reported.
As air travel becomes increasingly common for travel, there is increased dependency on it for economic development and access. Since 2017, when Donald Trump assumed office, regulation has decreased of American airliners having a negative effect on the travel experience for passengers. Ensuring the reliability and quality of transportation for travelers is the current challenge for legislators and straining the relationship of government and industry.
Purpose
The trend of increasing discrimination reports and less government oversight is leaving air travelers to rely on private airliners to solve the pitfalls of their industry. There is currently legislation to regulate the airline industry and regulations imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Department of Transportation (DoT) to prevent airliners from abusing customers. These regulations are underenforced and outdated for the needs of the modern passenger.
To improve the relationship between industry and government, better the travel experience, and evaluate the effectiveness of current legislation the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation heard testimony from government experts, industry leaders, and aviation consumer advocates. The witnesses include Mr. Andrew Von Ah, Government Accountability Office; Mr. William McGee, Aviation Consultant, Consumer Reports; Mr. Lee Page, Paralyzed Veterans of America; Dr. Joe Leader, Airline Passenger Experience Association; Mr. Matt Klein, Executive Vice President and Chief Commerical Officer of Spirit Airlines.
Discussion Highlights
Representative Rick Larson (D-WA-02) Chairman of Subcommittee on Aviation
Representative Larson introduced the topic of discussion. In his introduction, he presented information about the growing air travel industry, the increase of discrimination reports, and the need for increased government intervention to provide a better air travel experience. He stated that this hearing had to purpose of improving existing legislation and was open to creating new legislation for air travel regulations.
According to Representative Larson, air travel will increase at a rate of two percent every year over the next twenty years and in 2018 alone there were 925.5 million passengers. This statistic represents the economic growth that will happen but can be stifled if discrimination of minorities and physically disabled are not addressed. Representative Larson noted the discrimination reports increased in a span of one year1 which is alarming because there was a downward trend of reports prior to 2019. 2
Representative Larson stated the following as the mission for the hearing. Promote transparency, prevent unequitable practices, and provide accessible air travel for all passengers.
Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR-4) Chairman of House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
Representative DeFazio began his remarks highlighting the need for new and uniform guidelines for air travel amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He noted during the Obama administration there were guidelines set up post Ebola outbreak, but as of 2017 those guidelines were no longer in place.
Representative DeFazio also noted the past passage of the Airline Passenger Equity Act, which mandated airlines report certain travel information to the Secretary of Transportation3, but this act does not address issues of accommodating the disabled which is a growing problem in the industry today. Representative DeFazio expressed the need for better evaluation of evacuation of airplanes after the disaster of the Chicago plane crash, as he put it.
Mr. Andrew Von Ah: Government Accountability Office
Mr. Von Ah opened his testimony by breaking down the statistics that were given by Representative Larson and explained why reports of discrimination were so low. He says many incidents go unreported because passengers do not know where to report their incidents to. It is important to note that he still found the number of reported incidents alarming. With this, Mr. Von Ah advocated for a passenger bill of rights that should be added to current legislation or its own legislation to protect passengers.
Mr. Von Ah wants to note that the quality of air travel has improved since its inception, but if the industry is going to continue to grow there must be legislation to make air travel more equitable. Airliners must not be allowed to violate passengers' rights and then be responsible for correct them. Last, he highlighted the need for mandatory racial bias training and updated data on racial discrimination incidents to provide key training.
Mr. William J. McGee, Aviation Consultant, Consumer Reports
Mr. McGee testified about the validity of FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) testing regarding safety and the need for increased transparency for the consumer. Mr. McGee has two fundamental issues with the industry now. One, mega mergers of commercial airliners leave consumers in a tough place when choosing an airline, they can trust. Two, government is not intervening on behalf of consumers enough to fix the issues of the airlines.
Mr. McGee proposed two solutions. One, increase transparency between airliners and consumers. Consumers need to know what they are paying for and how to complain about airliners to a neutral third party. Two, fix minimum seat requirements for the health of passengers and safety for plane evacuations.
Mr. Lee Page, Paralyzed Veterans of America
Mr. Page spoke on behalf of disabled veterans that send complaints to his organization versus airliners or the DoT (Department of Transportation). His testimony was his own experience with flying to Washington D.C to testify. He portrayed an experience that was uncomfortable, inconvenient, and unfriendly toward disabled people. He verbally illustrated how he was dropped by airline staff and there were poor accommodations for him. He also explained how the disabled are often dehydrating themselves days in advance of their flights due to unusable laboratories on planes.
Mr. Page pointed out that there are aircraft on the market that can accommodate disabled people and not harm them in the process, but airliners refuse to upgrade their aircraft. Mr. Page pleaded for systematic change in regulation and asked the government to stop allowing airliners to give reactive rewards for poor treatment.
Mr. Joe Leader, Chief Executive Office, Airline Passenger Experience Association
Mr. Leader offered testimony on what airliners can do at once. He says that innovation is making aircraft accessible to disabled passengers and is key to solving other issues of aircraft. He states there are designs on the market that can accommodate disabled passengers and airliners simply refuse to invest in them. Last, he echoed Mr. McGee on eliminating minimum seat requirements because they prevent a comfortable riding experience for passengers.
Mr. Matt Klein, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer of Spirit Airlines
Mr. Klein discussed Spirit’s innovation and market growth. He believes that Spirit is a leader in the airline industry. Mr. Klein suggests Spirits increasing accommodations for disabled people contributes to Spirit becoming a more popular airliner. He also presented statistics saying when Spirit moves into a new area, the market grows by 33% and average fares decreased by 22%. Spirit also invests in diversity and America instead of outsourcing jobs to repair aircraft out of the country.
Closing
The Subcommittee on Aviation has the mission to provide reliable, quality, safe, comfortable, and dignified travel for all air travel passengers. Testimony heard from witnesses proposed solutions to current shortfalls. The most notable include increased transparency from airlines, better and stricter enforcement of standards from Dot, better FAA testing and guidelines for airplane safety.
To address the problems that threaten the industry, a passenger bill of rights must be passed and implemented. However, only if the following are included. All the solutions mentioned by the witnesses and; uniform racial bias training, requirements of airlines to give discrimination reports to DoT, testing for optimal seat space for passengers, non-essential carry-on luggage be locked on the flight, airline transparency of fees with government regulation to cap ancillary fees.
1-december-2019-atcr-revised-1-22-2020.pdf
3- https://www.congress.gov/bill/100th-congress/house-bill/1866