Report: Airlines haven’t yet eased passengers’ distress

Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2001 | 9:43 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., on Monday reiterated his call for better airline passenger service and increased capacity for the nation's airlines.

"The airline industry still hasn't completely fulfilled its promise to improve customer service, but that's not the whole story," Reid said in remarks prepared for a press conference with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., on the same day a Transportation Department report said airlines need to further improve service. "The federal government also has a responsibility to provide the resources to build more airports and infrastructure."

He vowed to push for more runway and other airport project money. Reid this year has sponsored bills aimed at improving airline customer service and legislation that requires government intervention to foster competition.

The report, by the inspector general of the Transportation Department, said "the aviation system is not working well," with the number of delays soaring and the airlines not responding appropriately. Last year the airlines issued a "customer service commitment" to stave off corrective legislation, but with the report Monday came new calls for such laws. The Senate Commerce Committee begins hearings on the subject today.

The report found some progress by the airlines, but said "the airlines' commitment does not directly address the most deep-seated, underlying cause of customer dissatisfaction -- flight delays and cancellations, and what the airlines plan to do about them in the areas under their control in the immediate term."

The findings were based on observations of 550 delayed flights and 160 cancellations at 39 airports.

In 21 percent of the cases in which a flight was delayed by more than 20 minutes, the information board at the airport showed that the flight was on time. In the gate areas, the airlines made timely announcements only 66 percent of the time, and of those announcements, the information given was adequate only 57 percent of the time, the report said.

The airlines, anticipating the report, have been arguing that the problem is that airports have not built enough runways to keep up with growth, and that the Federal Aviation Administration has not made the improvements necessary to control more planes in flight.

Ron Wyden, who proposed a passenger rights bill last year, said Monday that he agreed with the airlines, but added, "You do not need more runways to start telling people the truth."

"You could pour an unlimited amount of concrete," Wyden continued, "and add scores of additional computers in air traffic control, but until they start giving people the information that they have, so they can make travel choices on the basis of up-to-the-minute information, this problem is not going to be turned around."

At the Air Transport Association, the trade group of the major airlines, Michael Wascom, a spokesman, said the report was "very fair."

"It accurately reflects solid progress we've made," Wascom said, "and we view it as a blueprint for continued actions moving forward for continued actions improving customer service."

He pointed to the report's conclusion that "the progress made this past year is often obscured when the traveling public experiences widespread delays and cancellation."