Airline Bankruptcy Protection ACT NOW

[CarolA]

I got this from a Yahoo Group I am a member of. I strongly recommend you CALL and/or WRITE NOW if you want protection. (For those of you from NJ I would REALLY harrass that Senator who opposes protecting you)


To all Ziners,

Right now, if an airline you're holding a ticket on goes bankrupt,
other airlines must give you a "space available" seat for a maximum
fee of $25.00. So, if you've flown on one of your segments, you'll
still be able to get home for a very fair fee.

This rule will be ending on November 19th. After that date, if
you're stranded, you could be forced to buy a "walk-up" fare one way
ticket to get home. These can easily be $1000 for a domestic ticket.

There is a bill being voted on next week that will extend that date
so the airlines cannot charge people whatever they feel like that day
to get them to their destinations.
It's called the FRIST-WYDEN AMENDMENT and it will protect passengers
on bankrupt airlines.

Sen. Laughten (NJ) is wildly opposed to this and fighting hard for
the airlines to have the right not to honor this. He's couching his
support of the airlines by telling us that he's working for us
because he's going to make our credit card company give us a refund.
Errr....would you rather have a $100. refund on your $200. ticket and
then pay, perhaps $1000. to get home?

If you want your state senator to protect your rights, you need to
let him/her know that you want them to SUPPORT THE FRIST-WYDEN
AMENDMENT.

If you call 800-839-5276 they will connect you to your state
senator's office where you can voice your support of this amendment
if you feel it's the right thing to do. The vote is next week, so do
it asap if you're in agreement with this bill.

 

[Lewisc]

Carol--There is another side to this issue. Airlines in or near bankruptcy may slash their fares forcing profitable airlines to match the fares jeopardizing their profitability. Should those same profitable airlines be forced to be a "safety net"? Should the customers who chose to book low rates with a distressed airline be forced to share the risk that they'll be left with a refund and have to pay a market fare with another airline? A $25 fee may sound fair but it's less than a change fee most airlines charge their own customers.

AFAIK the maximum SW one way fare is around $300 not $1000.

 

[zulaya]

Quoting SWA top fares are not really what everyone else charges. Same day fares CAN be as much as $1000 depending on the airline and the destination.

I am in a market where SWA does not fly to. Neither does Jet Blue. Those are the big players in the budget airline game. To make your argument fair, you should really quote other airlines that have significant business in the US>

 

[Lewisc]

Originally posted by zulaya
Quoting SWA top fares are not really what everyone else charges. Same day fares CAN be as much as $1000 depending on the airline and the destination.

I am in a market where SWA does not fly to. Neither does Jet Blue. Those are the big players in the budget airline game. To make your argument fair, you should really quote other airlines that have significant business in the US>

Carol already quoted the $1000 number, I was merely trying to indicate that for a lot of pax that number is not valid. Spirit has a maximum price of around $250.

I'd certainly be in favor of airlines giving discounted fares to distressed pax but prehaps they should be charging the difference between the fare the PAX paid and their own discounted fare.

 

[nuthut]

Why should one company be force to honor what another company has recieved funds for. Would you expect Walmart to honor Kmart's returns? This make no sense at all.....

 

[CarolA]

Welll... there is also this side of it. The majority of the airlines flying around right now have received money guranteeed by YOUR tax dollars after 9/11 so they could keep flying. When they quiUnited keeps going to the Goverment for additional guranteed loans (which have so far been refused) so maybe this could be seen as payback for the loans for which they pay lower rates due to goverment gurantees.

The unseen part of this is that I believe the original law allowed the airline actually flying you to file a claim to be repaid.

I actually am not sure how I feel about this. I posted since the concern I keep reading about on here I figure it was something people would want to call about. (NOTE: Original numbers in the posting are not mine.) I acutally have not called since the bill is sponsored by Senator Frist who is one of my two senators.

I just find it interesting that the guy from NJ thinks that CC protection is going to cut it. If you are in Orlando when your airline stops flying getting a $100 refund isn't going to help much.

 

[Lewisc]

Carol--The bigger problem, flights from Orlando generally have a high load factor. Most of SW flights are overbooked. I'm not sure how long it would take to get the PAX home. After the hurricane SW (and other airlines) ran extra flights to get the PAX home. Obviously the airlines won't do this for $25 plus some part of a deeply discounted fare. I think allowing PAX to buy an advance purchase type of fare on a walk up basis is a fair compromise. Purchasing a deeply discounted, market predatory fare, ticket from a financially troubled airline should involve some risk by the PAX.

nuthut--When savings bank and insurance companies go out of business the surviving companies wind up, through assessment to state funds and federal insurance premium programs, wind up covering the losses. Some people put airlines in a similar category.

BTW This program IS ONLY for the PAX who have already taken the first leg on their ticket. THIS IS ONLY TO GET PAX home. The vast majority of the PAX, haven't departed yet, DO NOT benefit from this.

 

[CarolA]

Actually Lewis as I understand it right now the current law is good even if you have not used the ticket. I saw some discussion on this when USAir declared their last Chapter 11. The thought then was that if you were flying in the next day or two you would probably have to do the standby deal for $25

In the past airlines have made deals for passengers in this situation. Several airlines either honored Braniff tickets or gave substantail discounts when Braniff went under for example. However, there is no gurantee.

You are right that the bigger issue is actually FINDING a flight. The other thing that helped on the hurricane recovery was that people had not flown to Florida during the hurricane so there were not as many people to get out (if that makes any sense)

In a way we are victims of our own success. The flying public (and the majority of this board) does not want to pay over $200 for a flight. At that price it is hard to make money with today's fuel costs.

 

[Lewisc]

Carol--One article said the airlines might get around the $25 standbys by offering a $26 fare for their own customers. I think a $50-100 fare is more likely. A temporary fare sale would all but eliminate $26 standby seats.

 

[DebbieB]

I think the key is "space available". If that seat would have gone empty, why not let someone have it for a nominal fee? Then that person may return to that airline for their next trip. The problem is if they have many plane loads of people displaced, there will not be many "spaces available" on other carriers. Is it a true "standby" where you would only get a seat if there is an empty one right before flight time?

 

[Jestocost]

I will raise a red flag that the post from the Yahhoo! group is at least inaccurate and may just be an Urban Legend. The big problem with the posting is that neither the House or the Senate is scheduled to be in session next week (there is a major federal election, for heaven's sake) and won't be voting on anything. Congress will return for a lame-duck session later in November, but I would be very surprised if any such legislation is considered on the floor.

Also, the posting conveniently fails to include a reference to any specific bill number and there's nothing called the Airline Bankruptcy Protection Act pending in the Senate at this time. There could be something appended to another bill, but an actual citation would be helpful in confirming that.

Finally, it would be more plausible if the author bothered to exhibit even a rudimentary knowledge of the players involved. My chief complaint on that front is that you will find it impossible to locate a Senator Laughten from NJ or anywhere else. Maybe Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) is involved in this issue, but I wouldn't bet much on it.

 

[Lewisc]

Sounds more like typos in the Yahoo group post.

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/business/s_258358.html

Originally posted by Jestocost
I will raise a red flag that the post from the Yahhoo! group is at least inaccurate and may just be an Urban Legend. The big problem with the posting is that neither the House or the Senate is scheduled to be in session next week (there is a major federal election, for heaven's sake) and won't be voting on anything. Congress will return for a lame-duck session later in November, but I would be very surprised if any such legislation is considered on the floor.

Also, the posting conveniently fails to include a reference to any specific bill number and there's nothing called the Airline Bankruptcy Protection Act pending in the Senate at this time. There could be something appended to another bill, but an actual citation would be helpful in confirming that.

Finally, it would be more plausible if the author bothered to exhibit even a rudimentary knowledge of the players involved. My chief complaint on that front is that you will find it impossible to locate a Senator Laughten from NJ or anywhere else. Maybe Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) is involved in this issue, but I wouldn't bet much on it.

 

[CarolA]

Well... considering that I am a little behind. I went back and checked. It was actually this week! (The email was sent last week)

But you have got to be kidding me... the DOT thinks it costs $25 to fly me???? (Hopefully they are referring to something like the processing cost or something 'cos if they could fly me for $25 the airlines would be making money hand over foot and we know they aren't!)

 

[Jestocost]

OK, but that article was dated Oct. 5 and indicated that the provision extending the protection for consumers was passed by the Senate on Oct. 4.

So either the post on Yahoo! was old or the author was posting outdated information. Bottom line appears to be that the Senate ALREADY HAS VOTED TO EXTEND THE PROTECTION, which is what the original Yahoo! supported. I guess people can call their Senator to lobby in favor of a provision that they've already passed, but I don't know for what purpose.

The provision was passed as a Senate amendment to the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. As of today, the House and Senate have passed different versions of this bill and will attempt to resolve their differences in conference. The Frist-Wyden provision does not appear to have been included in the House version.

The House and Senate conferees are the ones who need to be lobbied at this point, not the Senate as a whole. Neither Sen. Frist nor Sen. Wyden is on the conference committee, but Sen. Lautenberg is. If you're really interested, check here for the bill status and conferees:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:s.02845:

The provision in question is Sec. 1106 of the "public printing" version of the Senate bill. The EAH version is what the House passed and it doesn't include Sec. 1106.