As USAToday reports, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. James Oberstar(D-MN), has said that the code of conduct that the airlines agreed to seven years ago to avoid increased industry regulation should be updated.
He also said that the Dept. of Transportation(DOT)Â should be given more power to investigate abuses and levy heavy fines, possibly as much as $10,000 per passenger. Oberstar wants to attach the provisions strengthening the DOT’s powers to the reauthorization bill for the Federal Aviation Administration, which will decide their future and funding when the current bill expires Sept. 30th.
The DOT currently has the authority to fine airlines for safety violations, deceptive ad practices, and failing to provide wheelchairs to disabled passengers. Quite naturally, airlines and airline labor organizations are not in favor of such scrutiny, which they believe is unnecessary.
For our opinion, we prefer the middle ground. Upping the compensation for denied boarding is one move we think would encourage airlines to reduce overbooking practices, which contributes to delays and cancellations turning into multiple days of passengers sleeping at the airport. Secondly, we agree that enhancing the DOT’s powers may be a good idea, but it must be very clearly defined.
For example, Jetblue, after its service meltdown, immediately and publicly took action to correct future situations, as did American. It seems that, in these cases that the airlines discovered a problem and took steps to correct it…in American’s case something they should have done in 1999. If the DOT’s investigation shows the airline took the proper actions to correct the problem for the future, then heavy fines should not be levied.
We leave it to the lawmakers to determine the balance. Too much regulation could cripple the industry.