Pair of flier advocates fight for airline passengers' rights
The passengers' bill of rights isn't dead; one woman makes headway with Congress
— -- Kate Hanni and Paul Hudson, soldiers in the fight for airline passenger rights, make an odd pair. Hanni, 47, a gregarious former real estate agent from Napa, Calif., has blond hair to her waist and sings in a rock band for fun. Hudson, 60, a bearded and spectacled lawyer comfortable in pinstripes, is cautious and soft-spoken, a workaholic who takes legal files on vacation.
Yet Hanni and Hudson share an almost religious zeal for the rights of air travelers, ordinary people who put their faith in airlines and have no control over events when their trip goes wrong. After the worst year on record for delayed flights and passenger strandings, the activists have persuaded many members of Congress to back legislation requiring passengers be given food, water, working toilets and other necessities during long ground delays — and the right to get off the plane.
Sixteen months after getting stuck on a parked American Airlines jet for more than nine hours, Hanni has become the public face of exasperated airline passengers everywhere. The grass-roots organization she founded, Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights, claims to have 23,000 registered members supporting the call for federal protections. Hudson, of Sarasota, Fla., is her legal and strategic adviser.
Strangers until a year ago, they met while testifying at a Senate committee hearing. Since then, Hanni and Hudson have testified and lobbied lawmakers and Department of Transportation officials, held press conferences and staged a mock airplane stranding in Washington to publicize their cause. The DOT appointed Hanni to a task force on ground delays.
Hanni has filed a class-action lawsuit against American Airlines for "false imprisonment" stemming from her 2006 stranding. Hudson is representing her in federal court.
"The airlines think I'm Satan," Hanni joked recently after a long day racing from office to office on Capitol Hill, seeking votes. "I've never worked so hard in my life. But I'm going to be a persistent nuisance on the Hill until we get this."
For now, federal passenger legislation is in limbo. A House bill with flier protections passed that chamber last year. But a bill containing similar provisions failed to clear the Senate two weeks ago. It could be months before it's debated again.
The coalition's chief adversary, the Air Transport Association, argues that federal legislation would be impractical because airlines don't always have the ability to deplane passengers safely from a flight and that setting a legal deadline for turning back or deplaning passengers would lead to more flights getting canceled.
The industry is a potent force in Washington: Public records show the ATA trade group along with the six largest traditional airlines spent $21 million on lobbying last year. Every politician cares about flights to his or her hometown.
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