Statement of DOT Inspector General on Review of Airline Customer Service Commitments for Extended Ground Delays (PDF; 42 KB)
Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General

As a result of recent incidents in which passengers were stranded aboard aircraft for protracted periods of time, the Secretary has asked us to review airline customer service commitments covering extended ground delays.

Accordingly, we will examine: (1) the airlines’ customer service commitments, contracts of carriage, and policies addressing extended ground delays aboard aircraft and (2) particular situations involving American and JetBlue, taking into account any specific commitment these carriers made concerning policies and practices for meeting customers’ essential needs during long on-board delays. In addition, we will make recommendations if we find steps that airlines, airports, or the Department might undertake to prevent a recurrence of such events. We also
will identify any industry “best practices” employed for handling these types of situations.

In the past seven years, we have performed a number of customer service-related audits and reviews and issued our most recent update in November, 2006. We will assemble a team to respond to the Secretary’s request and intend to report as expeditiously as possible in the months ahead. Our goal is to provide the Secretary, Congress, and the traveling public a thorough and objective assessment so that corrective actions can be taken by the appropriate parties to prevent such situations from happening again.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Air travel, Consumer issues, Government and politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.