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2001 Int'l Travel L.J. 102 (2001)
Flight or Fight: The Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights

handle is hein.journals/itlj2001 and id is 108 raw text is: 2001] International Travel Law journal ILIGHT OR FIGHT: THE AIRLINE PASSENGERS' BILL OF RIGHTS Timothy M Ravich 1. See Complaint of Marti Sousanis, Sousanis v Northwest Airlines, No. C-99- 2994 (N.D. Ca. 2000)) 2. Ex Parte Amended Class Action Complaint, Koczara, et al. v Wayne County, No. 99- 900422 (Ml Cir. Ct. Wayne County). In January 1999, Marti Sousanis, like thousands of post- holiday travellers, arrived at a crowded airport ready to go home. After waiting several hours in multiple lines at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, she boarded Northwest Airlines flight 992 to San Francisco.1 An announcement reported the flight was on time. Instead, the airplane sat on the tarmac. It sat. It waited. One hour passed. The plane remained still. Another hour passed. A devas- tating blizzard covered the Detroit airport with over a foot of snow and stranded Sousanis's flight and more than two dozen other airplanes for up to eleven hours. Conditions on the planes became nightmarish as the hours passed. Food and water ran out and toilets overflowed. Passengers became physically ill, ... [and] were being exposed to the growing odour of [a] concen- trated number of humans in an enclosed space ...2 The crew of flight 992 was uncaring. Each time Sousanis tried to stand to relieve her chronically pained back, she was threatened with arrest and told to obey an unrelent- ing fasten seatbelt sign. Horror stories such as this are the anecdotal flagship of a legislative fleet of passen- gers' rights legislation now being considered by the United States Congress. After discussing the motivation and contours of the now-pending legislation, this article briefly examines its practical applications, critiques the notion that airline service can be maximised through the generation of new law, and offers suggestions passen- gers might use to cope with the inconveniences of modern air travel.

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