Airline Passenger Experience association and Spirit Airlines. The subcommittee will come to order. I would ask unanimous consent ththe chair be last consent they authorized the recess during todays m hearing and without objection sosoperm ordered. Aysi ask consent that they aret on the subcommittee be committedjectio to sit with theo subcommittee in todays hearing and asked questions, withoutgooi objection so ordered. Good morning, want to thank the witnesses offacco the subcommite today for discussion on the airn travel experience. Accordingtist to the u. S. Borouh of transportation desist except the u. S. Airlines carried 925. 5 million passengers in the u. S. Oe and abroad. The highest total since 2003. The federal aviation aviation Current Aerospace forecast will increase roughly 2 per year over the next 20 years. Where im from, the number of complaints will grow from 24 million in 2018 up to 55. 6ie million bys 2015. By demand creates new opportunities through the nations aviation network, inv n longstanding challenges o int human growtherested throughoute last few years, airlines have invested including i. T. Solutions such a smartphone apps to distress the travel u. S. Experience. Todayssai hearing is of thiss subcommittee Passenger Experience in ways to improve this experience and consider how congress and the Airline Industry can foster toht on t benefit the public and these a witnesses of the Passenger Experience and gao and in historyexpe while the subcommite will discover new u. S. Airlines that view at the top of our mind today. The accessibility issues and 57t million americans most of them humble mobility at you issuesing to understand the error travel experience including challengesa with boarding thend aircraft inappropriate screening techniques and damage wheelchairs and mobility aims. As by the 2016 inches and 18 authorization inacts,it thes ad transportation initiated several rules of your joining on laboratories and support and service animals. Ge, heari it joined us on behalf on america and mr. Page, thanks forork coming out and hearing me rules within the stakeholders to filling the gaps on airplanes an airport accessibility. Throughout this countrys history its been a pervasive and persistent issue and far too often videos or personalorto anecdotes uncover practices o across the sector on the basis ofreli race, color gender relign and an according to gao its submitted to an average of 80 over the past decade to ere96o r complaints into the 19. Most of these complaints werehes through discrimination and its a startling statistic through other cases that the reporting system is not captured. The priorities that i have is to break down barriers to fully participate in the economy and our society. The 2018 act directed the gao to nondiscrimination Training Programs for employees and contractors. He joins the panel from the gao and his work on this study. Forw mr. Cline with Spirit Airlines are more about their efforts industry o nation. I want to just touch on the future of the airline past experiences will 116 congress of senateen geford looking to ts agenda with prioritizes and hands travelel experience experience for passengers. To do so congress d. O. T. An industry must work to ensurevicl transparency prevent unfair and included numertices and provide reliable Inaccessible Services for all americans. The laughs fa included numerous to ex enhanced Expensive Airline passengers including to help r establishing minimum sea pitch and commercial aircraft establishing a d. O. T. Aviation sort of advocate for air travel complaints and require carriers to improve the transparency combinations that they provide o in a widespread in widespread flight disruptions among otherdo things. Ihis look forward to hearing todays e testimony from mr. Mcgee on how recent law will help improve the pastce experience and as well from doctor leader from the airline pasture experience volunteer efforts to invest in new consum. Technologies equipment and general practices to better serveon t consumers. Pleased to convene this first hearing today on air Consumer Protections in nearly three years to exploree p the importai issues facing air travelers today for the past severallth years the federal government and air. Karen air carriers havs progress for air Passenger Experience and we should recognize that and that theres work ahead. Comfortable erward to identifyig where congress can ensure all passengers for safe comfortablee and dignified safe travel a experience. With that i understand thatat sitting in Ranking Member of the subcommittee does not have a statement and ill still now turn to the tearful committee mr. Defazio of oregon. T ha want to address briefly the covid19 and and air travel. Thefive years ago the gao recommended that in response to the 2014 ebola outbreak, that develop d. O. T. Worked with relevant agencies and stakeholders to that develop and national aviationo s Preparedness Plan for Community Disease outbreaks. That has not happened. Two administrations it has not happened and now it is l a little late. We wit have cdc trying to deal directly with the airlines and trying to get past their information. There is ongoing conflict over that. Last week, the chair and i wrote to secretary chao and asked that she implement the recommendations of the gao and put i together a task force andd become more involved in these issues as cdc should not haveop to deal withle individual airlines and the policy should be developed from knowledgeable people at if eight were d. O. T. , so we can begin to better track passengers that is obviously not the subject of the hearing today state of air travel my act first term in Congress Introduced t a bill called the Airline Passenger equity act, and some of those things that were inut that bill have been enacted and some are still out there. There are still issues that need to be dealt with for a better Passenger Experience. One thing is complaints. Gao says there are 50s to complaints to the airlines for dot. Everyone that gets to deal with team who knows to get in touch with d. O. T. . Howve do you do that . Nandahe bilfor a while i had ga mandate in one or other of the bills that they had to post something with an 800 number at the Airline Ticket counters and d. O. T. To had to maintain and 80 number today how does anybody know to contact d. O. T. With a complaint. We need more transparency there so we get a better handle on how many problems and complaints there really are. The airlines have record anc profitability a big part of that is and so larry fees we have laws i studied economics i studied school undergraduate. Law has of laws of supply and demand. The airlines, somehow when it comes to and celery fees or bag fees, the sky is the limit. It is totally, it is totally p elastic. There is no point at which passenger bookings fall off. When we are doing the faa billed in f 18, within a month all majr airlines raised their bag fees by five dollars. Are there employments gonna drop off drastically . No. But they say if an airport, in order to enhance the airport experience the crowded terminals, the lack of gates which make planes sit idle on the runway for hours sometimes on the runway at a time. If the passenger facility charge hasnt been fixed in 20 years if that went up by one and two, if we think of five dollars like a bank fee nobody would ever fly again. It is totally an elastic. One dollar were flying. And even though we can make ther case to the airlines somebodys got to pay for, this and weve r had the airlines to an excellentnt job with the hearing last year. Okay we have to do these projects. If we just bonded for 30 years and dont to do anything else because we dont have any Bonding Authority heres how much interest were going to pay. If we could increase the passenger facility charge, the user fee by this amount, and get to the table and show with half w a couple of bucks, while you cut the interest cost and a half. When i say the airlines, who is going to pay that interest . Youre going to pay it one way or another. Landing feet, eight feet at least three, whatever. Somebodys got to pay. Why mos waste money . Twhy not waste raise money in the most efficient way possible and make the improvements we need tostem the system. E. Weve been stuck on that for quite some time. Pastors with disabilities, we had a hearing last fall on this. One mishandled mishandled trage mobility aid or one dropped passenger is a tragedy and very difficult for person with a disability. It is essentially part of their body and it is unacceptable, my local paper in fact did some investigative reporting about airlines resistance toimely basi repairing, replacing critical, essential mobility aids on a timely basis. S. I thinkai maybe you have seen te photograph of the guy who is taped to an aisle chair. This is unacceptable. We asked d. O. T. Ordeal which he has there has the airlines to sa their training procedures, how a they arend replacing or handling the aids that are damaged or lost, i have yet to see the that results of that. Maybe we will hear a little bit about that today. So, emotional support of animals, i am pleased to see the d. O. T. Is taking some action there. We get the peacocks, turkeys, and other animals. This is a little bit out of control. We need there are legitimate needs for emotional support and people legitimately need emotional support and have legitimate objects with them, animals,ally should not be penalized because other people are abusing the system. Finally, the serious thing is cabin evacuations. D. O. T. Is conducting some what i think is inadequate testing with partial mockup shell of an airplane having to do with evacuation times and dealing with seats facing and issues like that. E a before i got to congress we hadd thetr manchester crash and peope werehat piled up like cord wood trying to get out of that plane. They died in a survival crash. Rs it took another six years here in the United States to get ai that when see removed over by the wing, because the airlinesow did not want to use their revenue. They came back with a fake steady and said it takes longer to evacuate the plane if you take out that row of seats. We beat them back on that and we still have that but i am chic concerned about that. We have tore start dealing with theover behavior people in the chicago crash where it took well over almost two and a half minutes to evacuate a burning supreme plane. Dragging big planes and fighting with the Flight Attendants silver taking their luggage. We have to figure out how to deal with those problems and sts d. O. T. Has to evaluate whether or not we can beat the standard given Customer Behavior which is something they havent taken into account. I look forward to being formed by the panel today thank you mister chairman. Thank you mister chair. I appreciate the opening comment and we will now turn to our witnesses. I would note that the Ranking Member of the subcommittee does come during witness testimony will finish witness testimony and then go to the Ranking Member for a statement. Just a heads up on that. Welcome to the panel witnesses. We have mr. Andrew than our, mcgee, mr. Li page, senior associate that arrives, mr. Joe leader xi fixated officermerc, mr. Matt cline executive Vice President and by chief commercial officer of Spirit Airlines, also accompanied by mr. Can failed. Ey mr. Cline will be giving the opening statement. Mr. Campbell is present for possible questions as well. With that i want to thank you for being here today. Without objection, all your statements, full statements will be entered included into the record and since that is the case, that your written t testimony has been martin part of thehewi record, we will allow your testimony and will that with will proceed with mr. Van on. Members of the subcommittee thank you for the opportunity re to discuss our recent body of work on airline Consumer Protections. Th varar reports issued over the past three years on a variety of Airline Consumer issues, specifically my statement todayd covers trends and deal with tea data k on Airline Service. Airlinelain actions to improve h service and what is known about complaints and of airline practices on improv accessibility ended discrimination issues. I work at the quality Airline Quality performance issues haveo improved baggage issues have dropped precipitously, airlines have for example reduced to give ury boardings by investing in technology to betternd r predict passenger noshow, is increasing compensation to volunteers to give up their seats when neededi eliminating over bookings altogether. Tracking technology and have instituted practices tonically l mitigate the impact of delays such as checking flights that are at risk of being chronically delayed, improving communications with passengers to through text messagingeless updates fall voluntary compensating passengers during extended flight delays. Delays or other disruptions those occur it could be costly for airlines and passengers. Anairlines are required to compensate certain passengers who areflig denied boardingtold voluntarily and provide refunds for council flights. Beyond those requirement steel tea told us airlines are not obligated though they may choose to provide a calming for councils and delays. Looking at the impact of airline var selected airlines of they wil contract variation types of accommodations provided and under whatat circumstances they will be provided. This can lead to confusion and some passengers please move the microphone closer to your mouth i cant hearl im you. I may feel that they have not been mplainfully constant compensated. The data on complaint still a different story complaints received by duty 10 , have increased over the lastrobs decade relative to passenger boardings by about 10 . Flightht problems and baggage issues are consistently the top category of complaints. Oughcomplaints related to accessibility andased discrimination though far fewer, the data shows that disability related complaints to airlines have steadily increased in this decade from about 19,000 and 2010 to about 30,000 in 2017,la increase of overints 50 . There isnt enough tech of reported to deal tina last few years. Ofor course the number of examin complaints may not reflect the full address experience with passengers for example the accessibility of laboratories while there may be fewer complaints we noted that some passengers with limited mobility can take extreme steps to avoid using the laboratory altogether severely limiting their fluid and take and other mently l choose not to fly at a. Generally we have found are complaint thatfo inherently limited dissatisfied individuals never complain and not represented on the data. Our recent work on accessibility and discrimination issues are focused on airlines efforts to provide training on these topics of their employees. All the airlines we examined have developed training in these areas so theyn had been reticent to provide some of the details to us. Irliwith respect and nondiscrimination training we found thatand Airline Training o varied not all airlines cover t topics ofo bias which should be included in such training. Looking forward to the 2018 fa out the right station will contain with respect toing and Consumer Protections including d leading nondiscrimination practices for ese efairline trag into establish Airline Passenger disabilities these efforts are ongoing. D. O. T. Hasbili also recently tan steps to establish rules related to the accessibility of single eye air ill aircraft laboratories which has been something theyve been working on sincece regulating service animals. Ot ecin addition we have to targeta measure some consumer compliance activities, including getting feedback fromr consumers on its efforts to educate them s yothis concludes my statementd be happy to address any questions you may have thank you. Thank you very much you are recognized for five minutes mr. Mcgee. Subcommittee members on behalf of Consumer Reports, the independent nonprofit consumer ghanas asianars thank you for e opportunity to address the concerns ofbefo millions of american air travelers. Aothree years ago, i appeared committee after the doctor dial ands that today student where a passenger was literally dropped out of an flight. Ne conditions have not improved much forr since 2001 three Major Airlines delta united plus major low cross stat wise such lack of composition would leave americans at the mercy has comes resulting in or service, fewer nonstop flights. That is what is come to pass in many markets. Aircraft cabins irma fully packnett anytime since world war ii would passenger load factors at 84 straining the system to capacity and the nickel and diming a fees revenue reach 75. 6 Million Dollars worldwide last year. Statistics indicate that involuntary denied boardings increased by 57 last year with almost 21,000 passengers bumped against their will enough to fill capital one arena. That is why we still have and let essential question was never address. By doctor dial. When internal airliney calculations determine who would be booted to border or this is desperate need of transparency. Tosearching through multitudesf flights and flares can be in mind numbing complex price its especially hard because mostaris travelers fly less than once a year. Fees can be even more,flights on sometimes you cant obtain fees prior to booking and likeing o checking bags, seats, changing flights werefewe carrying on a. Its common for blocking seats out making fewer available for selection and scaring the customers into paying more. Basic economy is designed to attract shoppers. But a flight is delayed, it would be revoked and who would be not . When its canceled who will get a hotel and who will sleep on the airport floor . If youre not a frequent flyer, watch ou. Y on even t safety itself is okay, no chance of transparency and maintenance andnd repairs in el salvador, far less like the contracts have viewed guarantees and why we still advocate foraccommodatd comprehensive bill of rights. With guaranteed accommodations,t flight delays and cancellations transparencies, affairs and fees and safe healthy aircraft seeding. The a 1978 airline act overrules most of the Protection Laws and in place a particular essential role in protecting passengers. Unfortunately, they largely advocated that role and literal Public Benefit of new rule makings for two years, its Consumer Protection committee and dot we had no history as the consumer representative. The Enforcement Authority is falling short as dot record lowr finds and they found american roughly 77,000 dollars andac deltah 68,000. Corporations are generating more than 44 billion dollars in revenues in016 2018, thatsedict another turn. 2016, congress, led by this fami committee rigged the dot of togr establishing a policy to ensure families of kids 13 and under saidtual together without payinf extra fees. Forformat years, dot was virtuay silent so they had the act request. Dot forwarded 136 complaints to us and saying it wasnalyzed the unnecessary to act based on thes low number. Wees analyzed those complaintswo and were horrified to find thets cases of children as young as other c one to three years old assigneda seats away from family. Other children were suffering seizures or had threatening allergies. We at saw chaos during emergence evacuations that put children at risk for inflight Sexual Assault which the fbi says is rising. They soon forwarded 600 complaints within four times dot original total. Theore committees mandate were urging Major Airlines to fisticuffs themselves withget tr 125,000 individuals that signed the iss petition. We support the fly together act. Other issues that havent been effectively addressed include s faa traveling oversight ofhy outsourcing and the prepared station. The boeing 737 max is why wethet support the safe Aircraft Maintenance act in emergency evacuationth testy as failed to account for seismic changes and larger passengers, more oversi disabled, more carry ongh bagga, electronics and oversize animals and apart from families with to b children. Ed on67 year old loophole that d children under two to be on commercial flights. Media reports highlighted battles wees need you to wrap it up. Sure. The dot serve the interest ofety ov airlines and you have meaningfuld we a passenger righ. Id with safety oversight. And the subcommittee for its continuing efforts will be hads happy to answer any questions thank you very much. Now i want to recognize juliepa. Page as the miss pager recognize your five minutes. ,. N ow . Rman. Chairman larsen ranking travl members subcommittee thank youou for thedi opportunity to testifd regarding our travel experience of palettect passengers with disabilities. It has been more than 30 years in Congress Passed the airh carrier access act. This law protects the civil rights of passengers with disabilities an air travel, although it improved our even experience, the process is far from seamless and at times is evenlly unsafe. Didier members routinely reporting physically harm in boarding and be playing aircrafts and their wheelchairs we also particularly power wheelchairsfr are often damaged while being c stored. They rsalso often encounter air carrier personnel and contract which are not properly trained resisting passengers with disability. We believe most problems result training and inadequate enforcement of the law. Commercial air travel is the only mode of probably transportation which wheelchair or torsscooter user m must surr their device in order to travel. Passengers must rely on air the carrier personnel orir users, t contractors properly stored these devices and help themis board and the plane the aircraft. Many safwheelchair users, thiss where thes. Problems and safely accessing air travel truly begins. Erie carriers, use several different types of ill cherish to help passengers to board in the plane the aircraft. R chsmall narrow wheelchairs cat be pushed by its passenger. Ill chairs are often poorly design and need this repair. The aisle chair can harm the passenger because furthermor it does not have proper padding which can lead to skin abrasions bruises or source. Furthermore, Airline Assistance are typically not properly trained and havent physically lift to transfer person from an wheelchair to an oil chair. Ap chair aare also too often unfamiliar with the straps. On my most recent flight i had the problem with tthe aisle chairha and the people who came to assist me. The aisle chair that was used did not meet my needs. Islefoot rest was too small andy feet kept falling off the aislee chair. At sastr i was being brought ina out of the plane, also the seat straps were not sufficient to keep me insecure seatedwa position. Yasm m a result, my hip and lowr back hit every arm rest all the my assigned seat. , the person tried the personnel tried to lift me up and put me into my seat they were not Strong Enough andit ended uph dropping me on the arm rest as a slip into the seat. Utpassengers with limitedd also worry about assistive devices. Damage to wheelchairs can be a trip altering event as well as post Significant Health concerns of passengers who depend on it customized wheelchairs or not easily sig replaced if damaged. Wheelchairs typically returneded to me damage it is not always the case for those whose power wheelchairs damage to assistivef devices is typically a result of import proper loading, andic secure meant within of the caro area of the aircraft. For minor tears to fabric a false tree to complete powerai electricalr breakdown rendering strand the chair useless to operators. Repair often takes time, leaving thehe passenger stranded until it can be fixed. Theommerc Disability Access is t nonexistent on most commercialot aircrafts. The width of the plane is typicallyl smaller than that ofp the individual being transported on the aisle chair, which means the to passengers ae bumped and scraped from row to row to get to their seat. Whatever that might be wherever that might be on the aircraft. The lack of accessibility 2 extends to the laboratories on the master juries of every aircraft. In january 2020, gao reported u. S. Aircraft laboratories people had limited mobility is found out that although accessible laboratories are available, carriers do not them. Often choose to acquire them. With passengers waiting with disabilities would encounter this theyre left with few remedies through the departmentn oft transportation quite limited to a response and complaint. In my recent trip i received 10,000 bonus miles from the carrier. Systematic changes what is needed. Disability provisions included in the study on laboratory excess and the fa reauthorization act represents an important step forward in efforts to improve our travel will experience with passengers withr disabilities. Howeveror these provisions alone will not. Address the fundamental excess problem tortr safe air carrier travel for peot disabilities as we strongly support the bipartisan air carrier access amendments act hr 15 49 which was introduced in march 2019 by representative jim and lance thing. He this legislation greatly improved aircraft accessibility and strengthened enforcementnue carrier. As population ages the need for greater accessibility on contrac aircraft with will onlyase continue to grow. Better training ofacce Airline Personnel and their contract hasill increased aircraft accessibility and improved enforcement options leading to safer travel experiences for pva members and all passengers with disabilities. Exp our view andi thank you foe to express this today and happy to answer any questions at this time. Thank you mr. Page and we want to turn to mr. Joe leader, the airline Passenger Experience and you are now recognized for five minutes. An o thank you, chairman larsen and Ranking Member graves, peter a. Defazio and members of thehief subcommittee my name ist leaderhe and ive served since i 2015 as the chief executive officer of the airline Passenger Experience association apex. Its the Largest Airline associations in the world, servi during my tenure as ceo, we came together with the internationalisto flight servicf Association Giving us airli combined history of 96 years of. Proudly advancing every major te airline and value worldwide. I am before you today because in believe deeply in the advancement of airline Passenger Experience. Like each of you, i began my journey as an airline. Passenger. 20 a high tech executive i wass featured in a magazine as an airline most frequent flyer. As this honor, i met with the serve the cusnd shared a page long list of ideas on how the airline could better serve its customers. They implemented nearly everyofg single idea. With that introduction, please, allow me to address the subject of the airline Passenger Experience. Ifies what it is and what it can be. Apex tracks verifies, validates globally fors ratings for over 1 million flights per year across 600 airlines globallytran for the official Airline Ratings be attributed, the leading travel manager app worldwide. Only one in 17 airlines makes it to apex five star status while another one in 17 makes it tofours a fix for star stat. Im proud to share with you,as the United States reached an incredible milestone last year, as alaska, american, delta, hawaii, jetblue, jay essex, southwest, spirit and united all reached either four or five stars as independently raided t by their airlineo passengers. Spirit airlines is proud to join me here today to share how theyre invest in a guestherebyg philosophy has improved their independently verified passenger ratings. Thereby advancing themselves to the apex 2024 star airline. Good news for all americans the inflation cost of air travel has dropped by approximately 50 over the past few decades. The air travel costs lower than historic fro totals even after s answered revenue fees and from a Dynamic Market perspective competition has driven u. S. Airlines off more variety in timesnabl of the Passenger Experience than ever before. Nginnovation has enabled u. S the airlines to offer better in thes optionsns including the disabled soport that and is the leading e on the u. S. Department of transportation Access Advisory Committee advancing closed pla captioning and auto description voluntarily, theyre replacing these enhancements acrossdbac new in Flight Entertainment systems both in cpac screens and on your own devicereat options. O ptfor better accessibility, this resurers are creatingg better optionsonat for access to wheelchair bound passengers. Thisifyi resonates personally fr me with is a paralyzed veteransf americans as brought here today as my wife, personally served before she became a medical armd doctor and surgeon and my father proudly served in the u. S. Army and flies frequently using his wheelchair. U. S. Awhat does the future brinr u. S. Airline passengers . They willl than ever with expanded entertainment andd connectivity options. The asenumber of aircraft inould Flight Entertainment worldwide will continue to increase while your own Device Options will surge to cover nearly all remaining commercial, u. S. Aircraft are this decade. As an example of innovation, each new screen installed byons delta weighs two pounds less than its predecessor sending millions of fuels gallons ofeatb the screen size for passengers. New technologies for our keyhard airlines and sit back screens are nearly as thin and light as plastic. Advancements have allowed passengers two to three inchessi more leg room and a store exceeds and existed space as ics indicated in my written of infls testimony. U. S. Airline ticket prices should continue to track lower in the rate of inflation as airlines now are earning 53. 7 less fuel per passenger then in the airli 1990s. This respects our passengers,ess airlines and our world with a carbon admission averaging 2. 3 less each and every year for the past decade alone. Are u. S. Airlines are voluntarily spending tens of billions of dollars enhancing air force to better serve their. Customers including implementation to face matchingt from the u. S. Department of Homeland Security, with their airlines and without any transfer photos. Other new technologies being deployed by our airlines are trs advancing topo complete management including groundpersl transportation, automated bagy e tracking, all along adjourning and remembering your personal preferences. This is the only the beginning of advancing thank you. Ill be wrapping up. Youre wrapped up. Sorry i have to move on thank you very much. E i want to recognize mr. Cline for five minutes. Man good morning chairman larsene Ranking Member graves, chairman defazio and subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to s. Testify today. My name is matt cline im the chief Commanding Officer of Spirit Airlines. Spirit airline is the ultra low cost carrier for you elsisi in the u. S. Weions. Serve over the 50 domesc airports and 25 destinations. Our total prices including all and silvery products include on average more than 30 billows on ours corporate travelers and affluent consumers have many choices in todays market. Spirits product is designed for highly priced sensitiveconsumere travelers, mainly ordinary individual consumers. Families and small and medium businesses who pay for their t own tickets and who face are narrower operators options. This continues to be an underserved segment in todays market and we are proud to feel the need. We are the the fastestgrowing n airline in the u. S. With the l past one three five and ten years ondiconsistently running h factors so it seemsfo americanr a consumers are responding very favourably to the choice we provide for air travel. Maybet few less widely known ar. Tremendous strides spirit is made in the past two years to one of the most Reliable Airlines in the country. We ranked fourth nationally out of ten reporting carriers in tht 2018 and based on unofficia statistics in 2019 as well beating out three out of the four big airlines and all the othercomp low cost carriers. We also rank strongly on completion factors and our back baggage handling. To do forat is easy inhnh a smallerenge airline as we have built less builtin redundancy andunfo inherently greaterble se challenges and from recovering for unforeseen events. We believe spirits low prices and services thats up to terrific values for our guests and we are seeing a positive reaction for putt for consumers both in our satisfactionpeat rae surveys as well as an our increasing customer repeat rate. Its not just about operationall reliability over the past three years spirit rolled out a broad an ongoing initiative we called invest in the guest that program and hence is another guest facing personnel. And as well as invest in Technology Like airport kiosks and our new self drop back annod complete rhat will help the check speed the chicken process. Weior also recently announced a complete refresh of our interior cabins featuring allnew seeding providing significantly greater comfort. Personal space and use bullet groom. Acleg later this year we will begin installing next generation full streaming wifi across our fleet. The first you will see to do. So i believe we are the only major u. S. Character spiritit one of the newest and most efficient fleet ranking consistently ranking in fuel consumption for passenger. All new aircrafts, next generation agents that bring aboutt most recent eff icgenerations. Not just fuel efficiency but also noise and efficiency other words in the for t past two yeae are proud to have one seattles prestigious quiet award for two years in a row. The interco. S. , the large distances thenn dispersal families across the country and the needs of our interconnected business in the environment all make travel more sectional and then in other countries. At spirit we recognize our product may not be for everyone, it we are very proud to offer low pricece those who mayayob have no othero plea option. With a strong discipline w exert on the prices charged byre otherther t airlines, we are alo pleased to help drive savings for all travelers whether they fly with us or not. Thank youed ear for the opportuy to speak with you today. Thank you mr. Cline, asas noted earlierr Ranking Member graves is here and will recognize him for five minutes in his opening statement. Thank you mister chairman. Te Airline Travel has truly revolutionized this planet, giving usle access to areas that never were previously accessible, giving us integration and exposure to cultures, to people, to resources that wewewev previouy would not have a had access to. We have been able to deliver doctorsfes and lifesaving medicines, to folks in need. Weve been able to lift folks out of the poverty, we have beeo able to introduce technology and innovation, and improving lives around the world as arave result. L. A result of aviation technoloy and commercial air travel. It really is amazing to sit and go through the exercise and thinking about potentially potentially not having that amazing technology. But also here in the United States as i recall in 2017, we had 841 million Airline Passengers. That is projected by 2038, that is projected to reach one point to eight billion passengers. Rts the whole experience does not start when you get on the plane. The experience starts well before that. We have three kids. I know going through the exercise ofs getting the luggage loading it in the car going to a remote parking spot, getting to the shuttle getting to the airport trying to find the right gate, checking in bags, trying to get through security, trying to get checked in on the plane seated. That whole experience, its pretty intimidating and i will t say it again, when you havelly three kids. Etty i know im supposed to say in tow, but usually following, it is pretty pretty ant its intimidating an overwhelming. I do think that it is 2020, and doctor leader i you talked about the technology and it really is amazing. It is fantastic the way tech has been integrated in airplanes in terms of the avian type opportunities. One of the home airports that i represent and to share with mr. Richmond new Orleans Airport allowsnot us to check bags at te parking lot, the parking garage which is fantastic, not having to take them onreas the shuttled Everything Else that we have toc do. But there are other areas where we can improve, where we can use technology to help improve thata experience, because the cumulativeokin experience i hear from hisup waconstituents all te time doesnt improvement. Lookingbeco at the statistics, e upward trend and passenger and w travel, it will become mores challenging. It will get worse, not better in terms of the volume. We need to ensure that we aree using technology that has the pleasu system that can actually now accommodate and facilitated andm allow it to be a pleasurable ini experience. In the ememUnited States as you me know we have major carriers. Comit is interesting in that ii remember the numbers correctly when youe tr look at the compla, the complaints about Airline Travel. As i recall, over half of them are complaints concerning international carriers, not our domestic carriers. I have not been the mother look at theltiple statistics but i wl guess flythat we have multiplen inte times where, folks flying on domestic carriers than we do international, and efforts we have seen in the committeee to across it cultural differences international versus domestic is something we need to continue to focus on. I also want to make note that to thethe faa in 2018 we made over 40, included over 40 provisions related to consumer issues and Passenger Experience. As the chairman noted, perhaps a few that we need to to improe continue focusing on and working together with everyone in i this room to continue to improve thatseed experience as s we can. I do want to make no,oluntary everything from seat sizes to strollers, evacuation standards, involuntary bumping, oxygen masks, protecting pets onrent progress hasi believe a dozen different provisions relating totoare passengers with disabilities. Certainly, progress has been made since faa has work to maken those. The chairman noted, we certainlyoces need to that we continue to revisit this as it is a continued process to continue to improve the experience as much as we. Can,n lastly, now the thing on peoplesd to minds is the coronavirus. We need to make sure that we all continue to focus on this. Outbreaks in south korea, italy, iran, and other areas are can infecting more new patients on e a daily basis than in china. Outbreaks can happen there so it can here we need to work in a bipartisan manner and ensure that we focus on e nsurthis the particular issue, aviation airwi travel and ensure that we are ty making this experience as safe as possible. With that, mister chairman, i to yield back and i appreciate the opportunity. Quons recogn i want to move oe questions. Everyone will have five minutes. I will start by recognizing myself i will start with mr. Page. Last fall at around table onec accessibilityent, you discussed you collaboration with administration on a recent road to improveth Laboratory Access and aircrafts. Can you give us your thoughts on the proposed rule and where we are its develop on its development . I as you know, the department put out the npr ram, comments are going back and reference to that. Spirit testified they are an airline that most of their planes have space flex one, which is a laboratory at the end of the airplane. And that a person in an oil chair can actually traverse back and into the laboratory with assistance from the Flight Attendant. As gao just mentioned, most of the airlines are not purchasing accessible laboratories and boeing and airbus have a product on the market. So the real deal is when are they going to start buying the laboratory . Mister leader, can you elaborate a little bit more on technological investments to improve accessibility . Certainly, when it comes to restrooms, the space flex option experience as implemented was done on a voluntary basis. It is designed so you can have two laboratories that actually become one so it is more accessible for people that need the Additional Space in a room we have other new technologies that in my written testimony, area we enable airlines that can you space that cannot otherwise be used in the aircraft who are more excess sable by extending laboratory out. As i worked with Airlines Across the u. S. This is a central area of concern, whenor in which im veryk proud of what spirititarea airlines has done a market one in which i think you will see all of our airlines more certainly doing as they do cabin redesigns and new ordersb from our friends at airbus and. Boeing. There are more options than before the big requirement, and this is what space flex allows for most of the passengersnt toa because you want to serve all passengers, but when it comes ts to serving our disable passengers, those two lavatories become one for ease of access to perfect compromise that advances our industry. Mr. Cline, you did know where spirit is on celebratory accessibility. What kind of what level of investment was necessary to make to make it happen . O thr we did go through a rett of roughly half of our fleet went through a retrofit in order to put those accessible labs into the air craft. I think that project has finished up two years ago instance every new delivery we have is right there as it comes i may add a piece to that doctor leader mentioned is, we also have on our aircraft theou coul widest aisles you can possibly have on in a single mile aircra. Ypites is important to us. We put certain types of seats that create more with for the aisle as well, just to help address the issues that mr. Page mentioned earlier. Are all of your plane single aisle . Correct. Back to you on wheelchairs. Veany aisle or design on them wr wheelchairs the use . Ed i have never seen a wheelchair used that isnt sort of basically, metal pipes with cushions and so on. Is there some Research Going into looking into redesigning and using different materials so they have a lighter, stronger ill wheelchair toe th help out with folks in the Disability Community . You have got two products, t the aisle chair which is what airlines and airports used to get on the plane. L take then you have the army board wheelchair which would take you back to the restroom if needed. Access board just put out and ad mp or am standards for the onboard wheelchair. Ds there are no recent standards for the aisle chair while chairs what gets you on the plane gives you trouble as i described in my testimony basically because of basically, my seat is 18 by 19 and i am sitting on a 14 inch ill see. So in the width of the aisle isf narrower also. Your question of standards, you have three or four different products that the airlines use the columbia is the most wide used across the industry. There are a couple of others that are used, but they are not specifically designed for someone with disabilities such as myself. Thank you. Mr. Graves you are recognized for five. Minutes i thank you mister chairman. In your testimony, you indicated that the number of the denied boardings have decreased or gone down, including in 2018 however mr. Mcgees testimony talked about a trend otherwise. Do you have any idea about the differences . Thank you for the question. 2in 2019, it is correct that those numbers have gone up for10 involuntary denied boardings they have gone from about 11,000 in 2018 two i think it was 21,000 and 2019. We looked into that data a little more carefully and it is a result of two specific Airlines American and southwest were responsible for all those boardings involuntarily i mighti add that part of that might be and ill work some of the airline warned us about access issues there may be an uptake in that number so that might be part of the explanation for. That and just very quickly, in regard to that, as i recall, those two airlines that you noted, or the two airlines that had the largest investment in the max fleet i believe . Oh thats correct. So its likely a direct correlation. There there is possibly a correlation sure. Thank you. Idea im not sure if youve all kept statistics, indicating thes number of forced time air passengers that spirit has accommodated . We lowered the bar in terms of access. Its a great question. We actually dont have specifict statistics. We dont serve a guest and asked this is the first time youve ever flown . But we do know is when we go to new cities for example when we entered haiti, we knew there were a lot of people from south florida that were flying for the first time to places like haiti, creating access for people in south florida. We know for example, we Just Announced service yesterday, from new orleans to send pictures hula, we know there are going to be people in you orleans that will be taking their first flight when we started that service and you. So we do not know exactly what the statistics are what we do know is we going to new routes. We attract new guests that haves that are infrequent travelers this. Well they may not have the opportunity to fly often, but what we do as we go into new routes, we grow markets we stimulate with low fares, onle i average we will grownd markets n the wholele competed with, we will grow 22 t markets by 30 and faris come down by 22 on average and 12 months following are entering the and service. We do know that we are driving new growth and those are industry numbers as we act as a disciplinary on for our competitors. May choose to ricecompete with s and when they choose to compete with hatus on price, the whole market grows. That can even harp and enlarge roots as well where people fly all the time, say new york metro area, newark, fort lauderdale. Werew entered that large marketn 2016 the market grew from a large route and almost doubledr. By 88 even though there was a lot of service on the market out already. We creaseek out those kinds of underserved opportunities and create the travel opportunities for those that do not get tohanu fly often. Thank you. I can tell you from one of our home airports in your lungs, every time i walk in the spirit area of the airport, it is tourm absolutely the people that are there for tourism, having a good time and many cases still out from the night before, but that is fine. It clearly, it appears anyway, that it is opening up aviation access to folks that previously would not have made that decision. It is is actually comparable in some cases, hey should we drive here or should ic twe fly to new orleans . It is fantastic to see thatlly whole group, what i believe, is opening access to a whole group of travelersha tthat previously would not have chosen that option or would have seen it being out of reach. We do appreciate. That doctor leader and mr. Mcgee, i mentioned that we had 40 changes to kind of addressing passenger issues and the faa bill. Would you like to comment on where you see sort of best opportunity for experiences a result of some of the revisions and that bill . Of certainly. One of the key provisions was the minimum seat standards which we viewed not just as a comfort issue and as a value issue but more importantly, a health issue for vein thrombosis and as a safe issue to do evacuations. I touched on in my opening remarks and the evacuation issued, thehesuff testing that s being done in the fa down inuf oklahoma ficity is not sufficient. There is sample evidence thatca they were not real word reflecting real world world scenarios. Ill speak to that briefly. In terms i agree that oklahoma tests are not what they could be, but in the opposite direction they tend to use, my understanding is they are using older full sized seats not the slim linem seats that are being utilized by airlines. Really, from my perspective it is about serving total Available Space to passenger. Omfort what i really like about some of the new seats that our flotan airlines are doing, instead of the thick star phone, that wasin a floating device it is now a space age material to provide better comfort inflight and me space is becoming one of the areas of focus. The gentleman years yields. Back we will now recognize mr. I defazio. Mr. Ivan i want to concedeanh 4. 5 of the eight have labs that are accessible to people in wheelchairs. We got all these planes rolling off the Assembly Line or sitting on the ground somewhere theyre calm explains. Are you aware whether or not what are they orderingdoing tha. Accessible laps in those planes . I am not aware that there are doing that. In fact none of the boeing planes, none of the fleet ofd a. Boeing planes have mr. Cline, how much more expensive is it to have, canat fi you, i dont know you may notot munich zach figure, but to have an accessible lavsnt like you have . I dont know the exact answer to that question. There is some expense involved but we can get that number for you. And you do not loose eating capacity with these new lavs . We do not that is correct. I wonder what the resistance is . I dont think it is smartma for me tort speculate speculated otherer their product. Choosing for this might be something thatp warrants more of a mandate ana i mean were losing opportunity when you know there are things that can go in it, for instancet secondary barriers, which we mandated in the bill, which are not wit going into the new plans because if the oh driving its feet. Now were hearing about accessible lavs. En mr. Ce page, have you ever flown spirit . Have is that simple laugh . There i have not flown spirit before buturin i have seen the accessible labs. But i . Do you think its suitable . With the assistance of Flight Attendants, you can get in as doctor leader described, its two bathroom side by sideav and they split thee foldable wall that opens up, and so you actually have to sinks, toheir lavatories, and it is big enough to close the door and be in there on the aisle chair so it works. Mr. Mcgee, you referenced the emergency evacuation. Again the tests that are being conducted, why do you think there are inadequate . From the h experts at the faa real world texting has not been done in an effective way by the faa in about 20 years. The testing as you noted in your remarks, involves a truncated section of the fuselage. It is not even an entire craft. It does not reflect the seismic changes that have taken placehe0 most 20. Years those factors are good 20 points up on average since the late nineties. Americans are larger, they are more disabled on board, there are more carry on just checked baggage fees, there are more distractions from electronics. There are this issue with the animals, to support animals that are in some cases are oversized, not trained. At you w combine all this together that we raisede earlier about families traveling together, where children are separated from their parents. Put that all together and then you have an emergency evacuation, and we cannot stress it enough, and American Airlines survey of its own passengers last year, foundes thats 87 of people flying on american flew less than once a year. Theyst a are just not familiar h this. It is just a bad recipe all around. What do you think we can do about the issue of Flight Attendants saying, informing you, saying dont get yourt carry on bags we had the chicago incidents and the Flight Attendant gave up trying to stop someone because it took . Longer to try to get the bag away from them what about that . We think the faa needs two and a halfs enhanced the briefing. It is ant h issue that isnt r stressed enough it is life and death. Real world accidents where people are going down slides with carrie ounce and laptops. Do you think we should pose should be emphasized and a penalty should be mentioned . It is certainly something that should be considered by what ab the faa. How about some way to to it lock on approach and take off the overhead bins . It shouldnt be too difficultsy. For manufacturers to come up with electronic locking systems . A few of them expressed concerns about emergency equipment that might be an you c overhead bins t of but i believe yes it is something that can be easily addressed. Thank you ive taken my time. The gentleman yields back, the chair now recognizes mr. Muellers. Thank you all for being here today. I will switch gears. My first question is for mr. Cline. Committee hadise a hearing on the future of americans aviator aviation maintenance and manufacturingnds workforce. It is no secret that our Aviation Airlines industries are facing labor shortage and it is expected to grow in the ia coming years. Anddsh industry forecast shows pilots with merica will need over 200,000 civilian pilots and almost as many Maintenance Technicians for the next 20. Years on february 5th 2020, announce United Airlines announced an expansion of their a Va Pilot Program and signed a Purchase Agreement to become the only major u. S. Carrier to own a flight trading training academy. Can you discuss any recentnt actions fromai Spirit Airlines that would invest in education and Push Development . Yes we have done someregional investment. We have what is called flow throughgh regional carriers. Me where there pilots go through, they get their flight iris, they become pilots and then come to Spirit Airlines after a period of time additionally this is on spi behalf of the spt foundation, which is a non profit armed whats ferreted airlines. We are investing with what ility would call t Education Centers andd m facilities that do pilot training, and also do mechanics training, technician training, and we are doing that for two reasons. Is to make sure the pipeline linecontinues to growd the second we think its important to have more divorce work force in the pilot ranks as well as the technician ranks. We are also investing in places that promote both female and minority training for those individuals that want to join the Aviation Industry. We think it is an important part that can help diversify the workforce at the same. Time my second question to mr. Cline but if anyone on the panel would like to jump in and get their thoughts please do so. Eit is a Workforce Shortage in the aviations base is not addressed whether it isis eric Traffic Controllers or maintenancences technician or engineers or pilots, what consequences will be seen for consumers . Its for me its hard for me to speculate about the futurewil regarding this professionals youre speaking. Of it is hard for me a to speculate about the future. I would just assume if we started having this kind of issues you will see the free market work where salaries or things of that nature would become more important for those entering individuals. You would see that kind of workf demand try for more people entering that part of the workforce. Whe thank you very much. Would anybody else would like to add . Mr. Yes thank you. For about 15 years that Consumer Reports weve beende te investigating and advocating about Aircraft Maintenance outsourcing by u. S. Airlines defining stations. Ety isweve advocated about it a safety issue from a consumer perspective not a labor perspective. The two issues are intertwined. We have decimated an entire generation of mechanics here in the United States because the ts work has been shipped overseas for much lower salaries. That is something you just cannot get back overnight. Younger people coming out of military, coming out of school,y looking for careers who wants an very good career. Airline maintenance are not finding it now. Mr. Leader. Yes i would like to speake briefly on. That for my perspective, see wee seeing the right balance in your core. We won the faa high number of hours for pilots. We saw it suddenly drive moremar pilots to get more experience that smaller airlines, part 1 35 operators, and then they areove actively seeking to movp through the airlines. When it comes to maintenance, i have been and maintenance after facilities across our airlines, it is a very sought after job, and one that will continue to grow. The economics of continuouslyprd outsourcing labor to aircraft that aree United States does not makees economic sense given the cost. I think you will see a strong growing base here in the u. S. And when that airlines are investing in independently and from we have a foundation which last year surpassed 1 Million Dollars giving out educational scholarships to help advance their industry forward. Thank you very much. Leaned forward. I was just going to add to a doctor leader just mentioned. We do some outsourcing of some of that work, but we do it ininh porto rico. O it is i a decision we made to helplphi support the territory there. Owe are using a highly skilled and highly trained professionalo organization. There we do have a small ferry cost to get the aircraft to puerto rico. We felt that was a good investment for the territory to continue to do that work. Thank you very much. The gentleman years back the chair now recognizes mr. Cohen. Thank you madam chair. Airli nediscontent among Airline Travelers have been increasing ex for good reason. While airlines areperience experienced record profitability andr executive salaries are getting larger and larger, flying publicic sardines and shrinking seats, charged unreasonable amounts of money due to increased and as ancillary fees and faced with fewer choices as competition decreases. When it comes to and reasonable airline fears fees the airlines have gone beyond imaginable levels. And 2018 fees for checked baggage and reservation changes hit a record 7. 6 billion baggagd dollars. That was 4. 9 billion for checked baggage and 2. 7 billion for reservation changes. Even worse, some airlines have recently increased these fees. Cthe flying public is exhausted so exacerbate excess there. As passenger levels continue to grow it is imperative that we work as a committee to ensure the Airline Pilot season practices as a reasonable and the route down the road consumable protection. Mr. Tesmcgee, he discussed the proliferation and your testimony. In your opinion, would you say we, have gotten used to check like bagga baggage isnt ticket changes growing how is that factoring into theact consumer experienc . It has had a negative impact for many consumers. We do not think that the d. O. T. R complaint system is capturingge that discontent. At Consumer Reports we have the advantage of surveys with tens of thousands of readers, and when we asked them about Airline Service which we do every yearst o or two, the top f the list of complaints is fees, particularly baggage fees. It iss existing fees, but that the existingcrea fees keep increasig as was notedse t earlier just ts month united and jetblue raised their fears. That is the reason why senator markey asked me tohouse introduce a bill of the house hr 51 95 from illinois and other transportation colleagues. Now would be the fair fees act. This would prohibit charging aae fees, including cancellation or change of back fees that shouldl allow those fees to be reasonable and proportional to the cost of serve itch serve it. They should still charge it buti it should be proportional. Spirit airlines swanned about is the fact that it relies on salaryg th fees, that being said the pricing of some of these fees recent searches for bag fees cost more than doubled depending on time and place of purchase. What the reason for charging bagging fees depending on where people buy their tickets . As you mentioned ourki businessng model highly relies n and celery revenue. We are not shy about talking about that. What we do in ourmodel our busis model is we make sure we reduced the base fares, so the e fares are reduced. That dontairlines are not doing it. What we do is bring the firsto down so that customers that dont need to check bags or do not need to have a specific seat assignment have the ability to fly that may not otherwise be i able to. Fly i understand that i appreciated but my question is why do you charge more depending on when a traveler buyswhy do a ticket. You have the same luggage space, same luggage why do you charge more . They buy their ticket at o different time . Thi what we want to make sure do is encourage people to think. About when they are making their purchase decision, we the want them to get that discount by flying as signing the bag fees to the record when they buy theirce ticket up front. The standard price is if youu wt just buy at your bag to your record, whenever you want to,g we want to giveth up people a discount for buying that for, adding that back to their record at time purchase. Certa you have a certain spar baggage. Is that gonna increase or decrease depending when that person brings their bag and fe puts it on the plane. Should not be the samee . Fee because it is the same amount of service you have to give them for that baggage space . Th the answer to your questn is no. We disagree with that. We think it is t thbetter to gie people a discount for adding their bag fee upfront because if they can do that they thinkle about their overall, like mr. An mcgees point, we want people to get the best upfront play state can i have a limited timeo and i it. Iate do you agree with his analysis mystery . Ie believe that the fee situation with the airline, there are two problems thats why we support your legislation. One is transparency, consumers are confused by the fees. These are pages from the spear united websites. You cannot always determine the cost ofecific a bag until you er specific flight information. The other issue beyond transparency is that many of the fees are quite arbitrary as us pointed outsked here. In 2017, when chairman defazio asked what is the cost executivs internally of changing a tickett the executives were doing a. Headlines they could not answer it. Thank you very much. And to Spirit Airlines, get a flight from memphis to new orleans. Thank. You thank you sir. The gentleman yields back. Gentleman from florida is nowow recognized. Thank you madam chair, i appreciate it. I wanted to talk about issues many peoples minds we reference just a moment ago with respect to the cove it 19 virus. On sunday the two first two cass of covert 19 were diagnosed in florida. One of which was in hillsburgh county being part of the Congressional District that io have been to president for represent which is between tampa and orlando so all my constituents if they fly will fy somewhere they will fly tampa or Orlando International airports the airport primarily uses international unannounced theyve taken steps to prevent the airport, and so those steps include increased cleaning and sanitation of areas providing sanitize extra hansen ties are reminding travelers and employees to practice good hygiene so forth and so on. A few questions relating to ther specific issue if i may i would like to as the panel have you seen similar airports across the country and if so,they . What are those acti . Anybody can respond. I can speak to. This apex provided guidance to allide on of our airlines not jn the u. S. But worldwide on 19 steps that they are need to be taking now. I want to stress to members of congress and is commembers of te public. Itne is thr completely safe to y right now. We have gone through this now and had different instances of people flying on aircraft. There has not been traceableat t transmission on aircraft to this day. We believe that will continue to be the case. There is vertical airgh circulation to have the filters that aree effective on board aircraft. With that said, the steps that we found outlined, its clearly communicating to passengers staffs of to state and safety steps thee airline is taking broader waivers for changes and cancellations which we are proud that several airlines in the u. S. Have taken. Enhancing Customer Contact details, and t traceability, so should we need to be able to have that on board, flight crew awareness on how to act in this instance, we have dealt with tougher situations, for example with ebola, which created much more significant aircraft incidentscraf. We have not had those it but they are prepared. Aircraft you contaminations procedures, having a flight on aircraft decontamination procedure in place, for example handles of restrooms and other high touch surfaces. Most importantly, to your point congressman, working with airports and government authorities to make sure that we are prepared as tampa has done,to to have a cleaner done o environment on the airport side, because the tsa security area is a very high touch area that needs to be tinston much more closely maintained sharing this time. Maintaining enhancing so that we never have someone come on board the aircraft that might be spreading covid19. Congressman i would just like to mention in our work that all the airports we look, that this was back a few years ago, had individual plans in of place for dealing with challengs situations like this. Xecusome of the challenges we kw have been executing those plansc related to coordination and doi, communication. Communication from federal agencies in terms of what they should be doing whether the real threat, was the real issuee was and communication amongst contractors and others in the in airport area to maketion sure tt Everybody Knows what theyal should be doing. I would justlynal like to menti would also mention that we a nationaly have plan for the aviation assisting this is a recommendation we have for the d. O. T. What if any recommendations you have as far as what we can to support the airport. T. That goes to that any other suggestions on what we might be able to do and our purview to help in assist industries as a whole anan airport specifically. Mr. Mcgee . Bsit congressman weve been looking at the websites of most Major Airline carriers and to their credit many of them had routes many large notices on their home page is about the we have i coronavirus particularly International Routes where they have canceled flights. We have seen this before with other force major events andicac natural disasters etc we think p that thatla communication can or increase for those that are not directly affected yet. In other words if you areetter. Planning a trip and you are on, communications from the . Airlines can be much better it is not sufficient anybody else anybody else . Working with the tsa to make sure that we have following example, i would love to see tsa have hand sanitizers it available, have life sold so the wonfact that y phone isg thi placed where peops shoes go and a tsa ban would be. During thisck. Ve time in particular, additional steps taken by the u. S. Government. Thank you. Thank you very much chairwoman. It has been discussed by several ofdisa our witnesses to. Our travelers, those with disabilities poses a number of challenges. Iencmore often than not it can i very stressfulli experience. And someobst instances, those wh disabilities choose not to fly rather than deal with the obstacles that exists from the the aircraft ande beyond. However, on afor some, avoidingr travel a viable option, and we must doo more to improve accessibility for those with disabilities. Mr. Page, in your testimony, yous to discussed many of these challenges for an accessible restrooms toged injuries during the boarding process to lost or damaged mobility aides. You disab also discuss the needr proper training for those boardd assisting passengers with disabilities, particularly when boarding and be planning an aircraft. Been discussed that i wouldnot n like to explore, is what happens to passengers with exi g disabilities in the event of ana emergency . Forftest those with disabilitiee exiting an aircraft in the best of circumstances as a challenge, but in an emergency it may be virtually impossible, especially considering korean aircraft design and airplane training procedures. Currently, regulations requiring that all passengers be able to evacuate the aircraft o within 90 seconds wih half of the exits blocked, yetet when th f a a ran evacuation test between november 2019 and january of this year to evaluate the relationship seats facing and evacuation times, those testedai thoseses tests did not include e people with disabilities. It concerns me and it raises questions about the accuracy of these tests and how reflectiveva they are for the flying public. I bri understand that passengers with disabilities should really receive a safety briefing from they n flight crew, the goal whh is to provide greater awareness of their accessibility knees. Yet,e of i am concerned that ths briefing rarely happens in the case of my out standing assist thoseshe indicates to me that briefing has never happened when she. Flies additionally, it isble not clear to me whathe procedures ae in place to assist those who are nothare y able to evacuate t their own in an emergency so mr. Page, can you share your thoughts on the faas choice to not include people with disabilities and its evacuation test . Thank you. That is disappointing, thatt they are not test. Uded in the ii have toth, for kind of echo r thoughts. Me, being a person with. Permanent disability, when it comes to boarding in the planning, i am first on andin lastg off. Ive had the evacuation regular briefing from Flight Attendants on occasion but not on a fulltime regular basis. Inroce that briefing, the emergy matt evacuation process was explained to me as basically i would be tracked out of the plane sitting on the floor taking out the best day. Canape the definition of time a. Escape is not really defined to me by the Flight Attendant at that time. Im equally disappointed e that the required training procedures for professional staff in the Airline Industry needs to be improved. Alkei want to turn to spirit t airlines. Talko about the improve you talked about the improvements you made and im appreciate them. Arrier according to the d. O. T. Your airline ranked 13 out of 17 carriers for mishandled wheelchairs and scooters last year. I want to ortahear from you whaw steps are you taking to improve your ranking in this important regard . Yes it is something know we had that we to improve upon. Wek w have improved upon that. Pi i am happy to say although there is a lot of work we can still do 4 for the first two months of this year are complaints are down 45 as it relates to disability related complaints overall. As it relates to the securing te and the delay of bringing the assisted devices back to the guest we aree t down 29 on that number as well we do agree asakn well so we do agree there is work to do and this is a topic theing important to us and one that we feel passionate about. We are doing it for better training quite frankly and making sure that we are saying the right things and, making sure that training is being followed through. Maybe we can work with your staff is a necessary security particles or followed especially passengers that happened to have a disability becauseuritles obviously lackins based on my analysis and its an area that needs improvement. Its disappointing to hear se this information. And i cant speak specifically. Itbut we will definitely take that away and make sure itit isnt something we are lacking. Thank you. The gentleman from new york is recognized. Thank you madam chair and all of you for being here today. As i was sitting here listening to some of the testimony and reflectingng any yabout my many years of traveling i cant help but think that from the time i, flyl started traveling, flying until today it is a different experience and its nowhere near as pleasant and nowhere near as comfortable. I am not the tallest. 6foot 3 inches and its hardf to sit in the seat of a lot of airlines. You cant even move in them and theres no headrest you can put your head back to. Theres nothing there. Its not a pleasant experience for me so im curious if i have time i will drill down on some of those is. I want to ask quickly consumered complaints between 2008 and 2017 increased. Is that because airline because services deteriorated or consumers are more aware of their ability to file to pinpt complaints with the dot . Congressman, i think there are a number of factors that play into why and how a consumer will complain. At wced awhat we have noticed ay did increase the 10 over that period relative to the number of boardings but they stay relatively static. They get the same kind of complaints and categories from here to hear. What we noted in our testimony and found from some of our work isas we have seen notable discrimination complaint. Thank you. Some reports first of all him on the organization they do a great job for the public and i dont think [inaudible] especially having teenage boys now im always trying to make sure i get a car that keeps them safe so thank you for that. Digtheres a disparity between your complaint and fmembers of the dot. Can you explain why that may bet or what is your take on that . S m certainly. I think that this microcosm for that is the issue i raised earlier of struggling together. Ierfamilies traveling together. When we submitted a freedom of information act we requested the dot find of complaints about families whod separated from Young Children on flights. They forwarded us 146 complaints over about two or three years. We then put a portal on Consumer Reports. Org and we put forward those complaints to the dot w wandth received more than 400,os to uo 600 now. Resso for us that clearly underscores that the dot clearlyunderscores the dot complaint system. Most consumers dont get off the flight after that experience and say we need to contact the dot. In the European Union foromplain example, there is a financial te throughout european airport are letting you we strongly suggest that peopley tneed to do more o know that the complaints are. There i dont know if its dutieso roller, not but can only help the industry do better and i know a lot of times i flyes wn american all the time and they do a wonderfulsome job and i had some questions all the time. Iin f have those little certificates when someone does a good job, i turn one in forala them and that is great. But along the european model . G what would you suggest it look . Light should it come from d. O. T. , but if it does what like and what do you suggest . Before i get to that question i would like to mention thatlines deal tea, whn they tell consumers to go to the Airlines First with complaints because that is the wayplaint a consumer is going tt coimmediate resolution of that complaint. When do you have to use looking at ervacomplaints they are lookg for something that is pervasive, something thats very repetitive happening over and te over again that has a broad Consumer Impact so that is just one notice why they wouldnt see as many consumers a reports for example or the think airlins themselves as we pointed out we think 50 Something Like or the t reported airlines get maybe 50 complaints for every one complaints the dot. In terms of the dot publicizing or making it known that theyve had a complaint theyve made some improvements to their website, so consumers have a better idea how and what rights they havebe to complaints that on theirhow o website you have to go there toi see it. Thats not something that is available i dont i dont think people woulddto know if you are flying im going to the dot website and voice my complaint. What do you think that wouldt look like if we try to you set something up for what you dontst we do that and i think its a bad thing because i think they want to provide a good service and they generally do. I understand thestantiti competitiveness might have tot have smaller seat space and all the other stuff but what can we do to help them to be more conscious of the complaints about their . That point is a good onethatg and that the dot does suggest european consumers go to the airline to. Fix things and not in the european model where they will step in to try to address grievances. But the more serious problem from our perspective the is that us wot has stated toy repeatedly they work one issues based on complaints when we said we had 136 complaints from families of giesautistic childrn and children with allergies andr all kind of serious problems, who in their right mind would say those 136 complaints are s less than 10,000 complaints about scuffed baggage to the need to have a perspective on complaints. Sosomeme o o are of the seriousc low in numbers and andal they said specifically they wouldnt act on the families traveling together issue because, quote, the numbers tare too low. May may be in a separate submission if you have ideas that i would look like maybe we can figure out something. Nk havi think having a healthy discussion on the concern and maybe people saying they have ay nowhere to go if there is a conn concern now airlines can say with a concern for i think it might be better to have transparency. To hathank you and i will yd back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from california. Thank you madam chair. In your written testimony you discussed the growingsome of the complaints from passengers for discrimination. Can you elaborate and tear knowledge what arehank the steps co airlines are taking to address at them this important issue . Thank you for the questionaints congressman. Thoseally complaints typically e discrimination based complaints arere typically about Racial Discrimination. Some of the things that we have it m noted in our reports are things where it may be a misunderstanding there is always a push in pull between to discrim the pilots ability to remove a passenger for safety reasons, but there are not allowed tobout discriminate, so there may be misunderstandings about where, h and whats going on with. That we did not really get intoo pinpointing exactly the cause of some of those complaints. Its hard to comment exactly on what the airlines are doing. Th ey that is a littlee is away disconcerting. Ifty t we do not know, is therea way to step up our ability ton particularthat a little bit further . The d. O. T. Does follow up on close attenne of these complains in particular the airlines s discrimination complaints are one of those categories they pay close attention to and four to the airline, so that is one way that they are addressing the issue. Thank you. He also test on increased barriers that passengers with f disabilitiesiled face, i found t notable that you mentioned that the number of complaints filed by people in wheelchairs may not fully reflect the inconvenience experience by these passengers. Why do you believe there is an under reporting from this reaso particular group . Theres a number of reasonsn. Why. Firsttorici and foremost,fica te no requirements that that these laboratory specifically, no requirements that laboratories be accessible to persons with tn disabilities from the d. O. T. Reasony may not have an expectation that they cann complai because it is not aa o requirement. That f is one reason we why, ik some of the things we also heard people take extreme measures to usi not have to usee compla lavatory in the first place so if they are not using it they nt will not complain about the lack of accessibility and that laboratory. I think it was noted and some previous discussion, people just choose not to. Fly to page, im turning to you. Would you have anything elsee to add . Did you have anything else to add . Ettingngwhat i was getting o what he said. In reference to a love of our members, they dehydrate themselves the day before when it comes to flying that way we know there is no access to the laboratory on the plane currently because it just isnt accessible and in reference to complaints that the dot, i would echo what mr. Mcgee said. They started to pile on the complaints and so weve got b some action from dot on aut lot of different issues, but it was a road that we built b trying to get some response from the department on a lot of different issues. Fereso definitely theres a lotf work left to be done. Thank you. Ir i wmadam chair i will yield complaints that youmcgee thank you very much mister an mcgee i noted in your testimony that you raised an issue that has been of special interest to me and to this committee itself who referenced on page six of your testimony 2018, fbi report that stated and here i am rise c quoting you, that inflight Sexual Assaults are on the rise. With children particularly welly vulnerable. You go on to say that you were shocked. We were as towell by deities refusal to comment. Ai dyou did it yourself and within weeks you said you had an excess of and im quoting you again, 600 complaints, more than four times the d. O. T. s original total. Isis. I have a bill called the aware act that would require the justice department, to report this similar bill has passed thisua committee its the chairmans bill that wouldl the require tht Sexual Assault be measured on airlines and to be made public. That they will pass this committee in november. My question to you, c particularly given your tha testimony, mr. Mcgee, is, how manynyqu of the 600 complaints t you quoted, in your testimony, p many of tdled, dealt with Sexual Assault in particular . Many of them raised the issue. We didnt have an actual case cited to us but repeatedly we heard from parents and caregivers that they were concerned about it. Tinhe some cases, they got offe plane. To bthey said if my child isnt going to be sitting near me we are not going to take his flight and conversely, we havent thought about this but weweco heard from the Business Travel community and we heard next to many corporate travelers dont want the responsibility are of sitting next to a young child we are talking five, six, seven or eight but is notnot their o, they dont want that responsibility. T are they dont want aspo responsibility to havetheresponsibility to have to ensure the childs welfare with oxygen masks and evacuations so the fbi reviewed this chilling report tha and whs we had that in mind we and went through these complaints we saw after parent say, what are they thinking, how could you possibly, you might as well be an unaccompanied minor. They have very strict policies fo minors theyied dont allow children under a certain age to be traveling, they give them special attention. Th purposes, ifvem i am a parent row 12 and my sixyearold is in really team that child is an unaccompanied minor so that is why we were shocked at the dot doesnt take this more seriously enough to act. Tagain not all complaints are created equal. Threat ofcompare the a child beingged l assaulted to damaged luggage. On the one hand we are talking about children who are completely defenseless and dont know what to do if we dont know and we dont know how many our adult as well and as i say if shocked this committee so its a bill that should be going to the floor soon. Welcould i ask you as well, mr. Mcgee, have you found any difference in the quality of Customer Service between the Regional Airlines and legacy f airlines . We have found that when we 5 talk about the legacy airlines, many of their flights up to 50 of departures on any given day are in fact operated their subservice they are outsourced to regional carriers so we have written about this and advocated about this at length over the years. There are two sets of rules, safety issues that in measure have been addressed after the crash in sere are buft theres also Customer Service issues. There are different stastandars to the bottom line ticket on b that american deltat you are flying on an aircraft is and operated by united american and so from the faa sa, perspective there could be different standards in terms of safety, maintenance, pilot serv training and Customer Service standard there could be differences. Is there legislation needed . Y w absolutely weve advocated there needs to be tighter control operating on behalf co ofly t major carriers and we find repeatedly that many passengers have no idea they bought a ticket on airlineflyi a that are flying on airline b. So simply knowing that fro hp who is actually flying you. I will look into that. We would be happy to assist. Thank hank johnson jr. Ionyou. The gentleman from georgia is now recognized for five minutes. Thank you mr. Mcgee, when the Trumpf Administration came to power, transp there was a department of transportations aviation that s Consumer Protection Advisory Committee that was in place that was by law was to meet quarterly. Did that quarterly meeting the trumphange oncen bebe administration came to power . Yes it did. For the first two years there were no meetings they were finally reinstated in 2019. I participated in one on behalf of the report last year its has been inat itstsued t frequent since then. So it hasnt been holding the quarterly meetings. It hasnt been quarterly,tmef no. And the department of transportation appointed represe someone as its consumer representative i think you testified earlier someone from the american enterpriseyes. Th institute. Ual yes. That individual has no career record of ever having advocated on behalf of consumers so we were shocked by that. This is a committee with several members and under other administrations that role was filled by someone with a robust history of advocating for consumers. How has disappointment impacted consumer access to a satisfactory Passenger Experience on airlines . It has many effects and wensr as consumer advocates work with colleagues outside of the Consumer Reports with manyio other consumerns organizations that advocate on behalf of airline gepassengers and we tret themrs very hank johnson jr. Seriously. We look forward to them and have robust agendas and they go in if you we are not being heard in the same way. We dont have someone on we stm inside advocating for passengers believe that we believe they should be. Discrimination can you describe what airlines are doing to address yu our work looon, Racial Discrimination in air travel . Thank you for that question congressman, our work looked at the training that airlines provided for nonmation about discrimination. I air would just mention that we did not get specific information about those Airline Trainingshard. Inin i would note that training was hard to understand exactly. Got the training, how often they got it, and we did know that in some of the leadingin practicesin that we developed in terms of discrimination training it did not include things that we would consider bestt practices like and ensuring that there is a robust discussion amongst the people it interactive training make environment. Have you seen that the parchment of transportation seriously agnificant efforts to address discrimination in air travel com . Rain did you take it seriously and follow up on those complaints, however that kind ofto h training that i just don mentioned is not required by although airlines do have that kind of training but they do not require. It thank you. Mr. Cline klein your company uses arbitration clauses in their contracts with consumers,c correct . Yes, thats correct, sir. S bec and thats because it ir more efficient and Cost Effective for the company to fol force people into arbitration then it would be to allow themin to File Lawsuits inst court against the company. Is that correct . In our case we have many more court cases that take place that isnt my question. My question is its more cost efficient for the airline to my question is it is more costn Efficient Airlines to divertrt cases to arbitration than it is to allow cases to proceed tocor . Litigation in court. T. Is ful sir that may be accuratei are looking tto the full accuracy of. It otherwise you would notrs do. You are ultra low cost airline. You are looking to cut corners, as much as you can and people are mor taking you to court. It is just more expensive than arbitration. That is a simple equation is not . No w ymiss i know you knowe answer to the question. We do provide context for arbitration. Many consumer businesses do. It is an attempt to achieve better consistency results and its for cheaper for the airline isnt it . Cheaper for the airline to divert customers into arbitration then it is to allows them t to proceed with litigation. That is the question. Is that true or is that false . I really cannot say because the gentlemans time has expired. Thank you. Gentleman from maryland is now recognized for five. Minutes thank you madam chair i have a statement and not a question. Thank you to each of you for being here today. On airline Passenger Experience. In 2018, the goa found that Airlines Operations generally has improved from 2008 through 2017 as measured by the department of transportation data on denied boardings, mishandled luggage and canceled or diverted flights. This is due in part due to the airlines making investments ando technology, airport improvements and expanding flight operations. However, there is always roomga for improvementrd especially regarding safety i think that a passengers experience includes even theunat unexpected unschedd and unfortunate series of events that occur during emergencies. In november of 2019, this Committee Held a round table on the air travel experience for persons with disabilities. The roundtable highlighted safety concerns regarding seats size anddera passenger evacuati. Irefederal aviation regulations require that the design of an al airliner must permit all90 passengers to evacuate the aircraft within 90 seconds with half of the exits blocked. Recent accidents have raisede re concerns about whether all0 passengers can in fact evacuate an airliner in 90 seconds, i believe the chairman of the full committee alluded toine tht theha example of this is an uncontained engine failure and fire that occurred in chicago in 2016. I am concerned that current standards do not take into account,manu passengers with disabilities. Aircraft manufacturers likerate to boeing, airbus are responsible for successfully demonstrating to be faa that each aircraft design meets this bar. But faa standards size for island with have not been updated inars 20 years make it extremely difficult for passengersate. With disabilitieo evacuate. And november of 2019, the faa started setting a minimum standard for seats in the space between rose to ensure safety, however there was no indication that the volunteers being used for the task encompassed all democrat fix in legal peo requirements we must ensure that the faa considers allerie groups of people when testing cabin evacuations and ensuring safety of the passenger. I want to thank you madam chair for y ieldthe opportunity to pue statement in the record and i yield back the balance of my time. The gentleman ease back. The gentleman fromg massachusetts is now recognized. Id like to thank our witnesses to help us. Members of congress and frequent fliers, i had a flight on monday here. I got the 6 am shuttle down from boston. Maybe it is because the 6 00 shuttle but half the plane was empty. Shuttle that half the plane was empty but because of the seating assignment protocol i am thinking about the coronavirus the first does in rows are all jampacked with people. And the back of the plane was completely empty. Of teven those assurances you e given, with a hepa filter and all of that certainly having everybody gm did with each other while the rest of the plane is empty probably is a pragmatic. You run an airline would it take an act of congress to change theech seating protocols. We dont frequently deal with half empty planes. But them i have a. A lot of airlines are going to see half empty planes. You bring up an excellent point. Frankly were not dealing today yet. Halfempty plane quick. You bring up the excellent point. Because planes continue to run full and its hard for me to comment on that. I want to waste of my time. Like this this is indicative of the problem is very heavily regulated industry. It should be simple. S there are some. There is loading issue as. I well. And what we are dealing with is the cdc is asking for information from the Airlines Passengers on the flight flying to the destination and three or four days later they test positive for the coronavirus with the ae oros passenger named usuallyecord has a phone numbeo they can tell the passenger thau sitting next to the person that you have been in direct contact with someone who has tested p positive recently withos the coronavirus. Rethe airlines dont want to cooperate, and so we have a dilemma here and im asking you again mr. Cline, not to put you under the gun but what is the Airline Position on this . In a i can speak specificallyo spirit. We may be in a position i will give you the that spirit perspe. Position the information that has been requested is extremely important important. Onta the name contact and em . Di passengers that book airlie directly with the airline with i the name record if youf book through the third party say through expedia. We dont get information through that transmission. Some customers you do. Tra that we have the abilityt is very inefficient but we do to collect information as the directive comes in and then we address that. T. Information like email addres passenger soiduall you have to goenger get that information upon inefficientin i and hard to t we had the ability to do that in ourbi lireservation system. And then i dont want to talk about other airlines. From the Global Distribution systems when heairlines collect nformationn phone number they are happy top provide that to the cdc and the instances wheree historically expedia or other agencies can help with that information will see a wall breakdown cdc requested behind theo reservation will offer that to the airliner historically theyy have not. T for that passenger and family they can take those precautions i yield back to the chair recognizes the gentle man from indiana. Colleagues mentioned until the ministries my colleagues mentioned discrimination much of the conference Aviation Industry has reporting comprehensive reporting regarding requirements regarding her own airplanes for good reason. However there is very little airlines toforle remove someoneyy from the airplane dot only reports on discriminatory removals when passengers complain. This impacts muslim seeks arab americans. From 1997 but most recently, but most recently the dot is wha entered into a Consent Decree so what can be done toorti reque full reporting and r removal and those were causing africanamericans and others to be stereotyped such as speaking arabic or wearing a hijab. So i can tell you two two different things. Ent number one is a level of sensitivity and training done each of our airlines keeps Getting Better and better each year we see forr example ates ld starbucks where there was insensitivity. Airlines learn from that quite readily, because that is the no airline wants to be in that instance. In terms of reporting, airlines do collect incident reports there is a confrontation with a cop passenger or an incident with a passenger that leads to removall from that aircraft. Procedures that are much much better and very well orchestrated in terms of serving their customers, not allowing an incident to occur. It is to the detriment to theirv customer as happened to dr. Are dow. That is an area of great improvement. My one concern is to your point congressman, is that we need to do better about underlying, to unseen bias and Airlines Continue to focus on training and awareness to not allow that to ever impact decisions. I can turn it over to mr. Cline to speak about the spirits. Activity on that front. Certainly, we have greatly improved our antidiscrimination training we take it seriously in an area that we saw that we had improvements we can make and we knew this invested in. That it is for all of our guestd it facing team members so its not just on the aircraft that the airport as well. It is important to us aircraft and its important to us. And something we take seriously and the improvement rate large the related to most of the time were mucdealing with guests tt are incredibly disruptive because they had too much fun and then that causes causing Law Enforcement officials to help assistd us if we cannot defuse the situation ourselves its always what we try to do before calling the Law Enforcement if necessary. The key issue some Airline Executives have referred to havo their team members. Eir that many frontline employs are outsourced. So the levels of traininging at compensation is a reflection and those to the regional carriers. But that they interfaceho fro te in the frontlines and eventms Airline Uniforms but not airline bploy employees. So unless you address issues. That does raise a good that point. Every Family Member even if theyre part of an outsourced organization, they come to our hood headquarters in florida and go through the exact samerol streaming training as our team theats that are onon specific sam spirit payroll. Ndthey come in, they have the exact same training in fact i spend time and my colleagues spend time meeting each and every Single Person during our new high orientation we take time out of our day to spend that one hour and a half with them doing are three plus weeks ine cases it can be six to eight weeks of training. I understand what mr. Mcgee is i raising. Agree, i think it is important to make sure that outsourced employees are trained and taught the same way as an actual employee. We appreciate that that is not the case at all. Thank you gentlemen. I yield back that im sure. The gentleman. Yields back for are there any further questions from the subcommittee . Since for i would like to thank each of the witnesses for your testimony today, your contribution and todays discussion have been informative unhelpful. As unanimous consent that the recordsrs t hearing remain open until such time as our witnesses have provided answers to any questions that may be submitted to them in writing and unanimous consent that the record remain open for 15 days consent the reonal comments information submitted byby members or witnesses included in todayst ob hearing. Withoutnythin objection if no or members have anything to add the subcommittee stands adjourned. Acting Homeland Security chad wulf testifies bill for the Homeland Security on budget request. Cybersecurity, Disaster Relief and preparedness and coronavirus protection. Ronavirus
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