Transcripts For CSPAN2 United President Promises Airline Will Work To Earn Public Trust 20170509

Order. We are certainly pleased to have our Witnesses Today and to the members of the committee. We are going to all try to minimize the time we spend talk so we can maximize questions and what we can learn from those certainly impossible to ignore the public outcry with instances that involves passengers even as recently as yesterday but one of the most rightly and purported instances was with chicago flight 9411 and lots of lessons to be learned and im sure we are going to hear what some of those Lessons Learned both with the airport and airline and the industry are today and looking at what happened to Sarah Cantwell and i along with mr. Nelson, senator nelson really sent an immediate letter in that letter said the last thing of paying Airline Customer should expect this to be physically taken off and airline and the purpose of todays hearing is to follow up on the letters we sent, the responses we got and really to out what went wrong and what are we going to do to be sure that doesnt happen in the future. This is the year where faa reauthorization needs to occur between now and september the 30th and part of this. It is to determine what is going to be taking care of without the congress and what is going to be taking care of in the federal law itself trading going to turn to senator cantwell for her opening comments and then we will come to love you. Thank you mr. Chairman before doing to enter into the record a letter from the paralyzed veterans of america discussing the challenges they have faced as disabled passengers when they fly if i could do that. Without objection. Thank you chairman for convening this hearing and thank you to the witnesses for being here to discuss the many important topics being raised today. It would be safe to say that all of us were deeply disturbed by the images of dr. Doa levied in days being dragged from the isle of a plane last month in chicano for passenger who presented no threat to safety or security of a flight he treated being that treated that way is completely unnecessary and unacceptable. United has the knowledge to as much and we asked the traffic Public Lecture does not begin to uniteds in chicago has not been the only Airline Incident to gain national and attention recently many to look at the policies and procedures across the industry to help address and improve the experience for the flying public. You need to ask yourselves as providers are you prioritizing the shareholder profits for basic needs of consumers . The Airline Industry as a whole needs to enforce sensible ways to fix the traveling experience for our passengers for desert commercial air system continues to grow airports or mark injected in congested, the flying public understands because they see it every time and they fly. The seats are becoming smaller, tempers are flaring and if you run into trouble in your flight is canceled or you miss the connection you are out of luck. Airplanes are flying full and in many cases seats arent available to accommodate passengers and capacity in many cases is rising slowly if at all as the competition is disappeared even as those 83 having filled in the state of washington one of Fastest Growing airports for three consecutive years and passengers have been feeling that squeeze as well. We have had hearings about how we are addressing that from gsa in Homeland Security perspective but as a result the industrys growth to many airports are facing long lines at security and they are facing crowded terminals and gateways. We need to do our part and make sure the flying experience for the public is also focused on the needs of the flying public great way to find improvements at our airports that will allow for competition and i believe that we need to make sure that our airports have access to our customers. To appreciate the steps united in their partners in the Many Industries are taking to improve Passenger Experience and his airlines have brought a record profits they have made some investments back into their product at the fact that we are here today to hear about across the industry we need to continue to make more steps toward that Passenger Experience. I know that when my former colleague was hear senator talks are we talked about those elements of that passage of the bill of rights just making sure when passengers were delayed on runways or held on flights with an extraordinary amount of time they got their basic needs taking care of like access to water or food and making sure that they had clear understanding. I think it may be time for new passenger bill of rights to make sure we are focusing on the Consumer Experience making sure that consumers arent left, that we are doing things that are appropriate and necessary to make sure that they are protected in these incidents of thank you mr. Chairman for having the steering. Thank you senator cantwell and senator nelson the Ranking Member if you would like to make a few comments before we start that would be great. Thank you mr. Chairman, i would visit the gravity of the situation. What happened to dr. Doa is simply unconscionable and im sorry mr. Kirby that you are sent here as the president number two to be the sacrificial lamb. It ought to be your ceo who i know personally and who is a wonderful person and who has overcome great personal medical challenges and was beginning to get such a good reputation but anybody who has served in the military understands that the captain of the ship is in fact responsible and it ought to be the ceo and for the life of me barring any safety reasons, security reasons which was certainly not the case here no passenger should ever be treated like this on an airline. Now i understand that you have made several changes following the incident and we all appreciate those efforts, but this is a subtext and day for telling of larger issues because the Airline Industry in this country has become anticompetitive and consumers are being hurt in the process. Taught to most any passenger and they feel like they are being treated as self loading cargo. Rather than the way they should be as self, very valued customers. They feel taken advantage of and they are getting sick and tired of it. Where the fellow passengers are being unfairly or unjustly treated. And i take no pleasure in beating up on the airlines but in this case it is warranted and it is a good thing we are having this hearing. Because of what it means for the future. So all of us have experienced firsthand only have heard from folks back home about incidents. The explosion of fees such as checked baggage, priority boarding, assigned seating. They are not always clear. They are trying to straighten out some of this in last years faa bill. Were going to get another crack at it this year. In the it systems of airlines are failing and causing prolonged confusion and delays and passengers with disabilities and that is why i am glad that you put in the veterans, disabled veterans letter. They are having to deal with poorly Trained Personnel for wheelchairs are mishandled and damaged. And then add to the insult to injury just yesterday, we learned that American Airlines and i wish we had had the ceo of american here. We learned that American Airlines is getting ready to buy 100 new boeing 737 juts that they call a max jet. Theyre going to cram another 10 seats in and so, in an article which i will enter into the record mr. Chairman with your permission, American Airlines is cutting more legroom in economy class. They say that in these boeing 737 mac jetliners that they will shrink the distance between seeds which is known as pitch from 31 to 29 inches and in this article it points out right now delta, american and southwest are 31. United is 30 inches. Spirit is 28 inches. American by these new jets, 10 receipt crandon i wonder how you handled liz nelson that Flight Attendant having to deal with 10 more passengers cramped in. 29 inches. It will only be rivaled by spirit at 28. And virgin has 32 inches and jetblue has 34 inches. But jetblue and virgin are not the big four. So while these are certainly not new complaints, they seem to be getting worse in the publics eye. And the fact is that we would not be sitting here today if the traveling public believes that the airlines cared more about them then they are caring about the dough. You all need to face this. Two years ago the democrats on this committee released a report on the airlines lack of transparency on the growing number of fees charged to passengers that called on the airlines to stop nickel and diming the traveling public. And what has happened since . These continue to go up while the Airlines Fight behind the scenes in washington to kill any proposal. We had that. They killed some of them last year the faa bill, some of them we got in but compounding all of this is the fact that many consumers do not have a lot of choices. If they are fed up with the service at their local airport. So where is the competition . And so according to one recent study, of the Us Travel Association the vapor currently controls over 50 percent of the seat capacity on flights out of 155 airport. So that does not sound really competitive to me. So here we are with an industry facing selfinflicted pr problems. Sitting before us asking for our forgiveness and to allow them to fix their own problems. Mr. Chairman, i am a strong believer in savings and in being saved and redemption. And i truly hope the airlines are sincere in their corrective actions match their words. But what i see 10 more passengers being crammed into the same size aircraft, i have questions. So i think most americans would want to return to the friendly skies and that said, let this senator be clear. If i have anything to do with it as a Ranking Member of the committee, this committee is not going to sit back and wait and see approach. We have acted in a bipartisan fashion in the past to protect the flying public and we are prepared to do so again when we begin later this year on the faa authorization bill. Thank you, mr. Chairman for this opportunity. Thank you, sir nelson. We had today with us ginger evans who is the commissioner of the Chicago Department of aviation, scott kirby the president of United Airlines. Sharon pinkerton Senior Vice President legislative Regulatory Affairs for airlines of america. Senator nelson the International President of the association of Flight Attendants and sally greenberg, executive director of the National Consumer league. We are pleased that youre here and look forward to testimony. We have your testimony. We would love to have you handle your five minutes however, you want but we will run the clock very tight. No more 25 minutes with questions. Commissioner we will let you start. Good morning. Thank you chairman, Ranking Members and the members of the committee for asking me to be here to talk about the important issue of safety at our airports. On behalf of the Chicago Department of aviation i want to offer doctor dilantins family my sincerest apologies. A passenger on one of our airports being injured in this way is deeply saddening and offensive to me. This is not how we do business and these actions will not be tolerated. Of the commissioner of aviation overseeing ohare and Midway International airport, the safety and wellbeing of the flying public remains our highest priority. It is imperative that our employees interact with passengers that not only protects their safety but conveys dignity and respect. We have a Strong Security plan in place coordinated and they established roles and responsibilities for multilayered Security Response system. The system works together to prevent terrorist threats and breaches of security while ensuring continued confiscation of weapons explosive detections and general security for persons working in and traveling through the airports. These plans help ensure that more than 100 million passengers safely travel through Ohare International airport and Midway International airport each and every year. We continue to adapt safety and Security Policies procedures and to respond to new and changing threats both external and internal. However based on my review the Security Officers involved in the incident on united flight 3411 broke from our standard procedures and failed to provide dr. David dao and his family the respect we demand. These actions are not condoned by the department of aviation in chicago. We initiated an immediate administrative review. Based on that for personnel were put on leave. The findings of our view were given to the city of chicagos office of inspector general. The details of the communication and actions during the response to the requester officers are now the subject of an expedited disciplinary investigation by the inspector general. Our immediate review view shows the actions of the officers were not in accordance with the Chicago Department of aviations directives. Our policy is clear here that force should only be used when necessary to protect the security and safety of passengers. Our policy states and i quote the safety of innocent persons and bystanders must be given primary consideration whenever the use of force is contemplated. Further my department launched a separate review to identify changes that might clarify and strengthen security roles and procedures. We cannot reverse what took place as a department but we are taking action to ensure that this never happens again. We have moved quickly to institute several changes that i would like to share with you today. First, United Airlines announced that effective april 12 it will request officers only for issues involving safety and security. We are working with our other airlines to standardize this policy and ensure complete consistency throughout the two airports. Effective april 10 Chicago Department of aviation airport Security Officers will no longer board aircraft. Unless there is an immediate medical issue or imminent physical threat on board with bodily harm and risk. The Chicago Police department will continue to take the lead in responding to disservices on aircraft which they have done. While the main duty of Airport Security offices will continue to be to enforce federal regulations governing airport safety and security and restricted areas of the airport. While the Airport Security offices are specifically trained on airfield perimeter patrol and movement areas they are not designated Law Enforcement authority at the airports. Third, we are in the final stage of obtaining International Aviation security expert to partner with us to conduct a comprehensive review of security programs viewed including policies procedures staff functions facilities and technology to ensure that we are not only meeting current best practices but also thinking forward and positioning ourselves to respond to the everchanging security environment. While these measures represent an important step forward more work remains to be done. We will continue to assess both our staff and facilities to meet the most important mission, a safe and supportive of every passenger that most of the airport. We are also initiating a very comprehensive plan with the Airline Partners to modernize and improve the chicago ohare for the purpose of serving our customers more comfortably. In closing i would say once again that we are deeply sorry for the events that took place on april 9. We are doubling our efforts to strengthen Security Policy procedures and Training Programs to ensure they Work Together to keep all of our passengers safe. Chairman, Ranking Member kent will. Thank you for the opportunity to talk on this important matter today. My name is scott kirby the president of United Airlines. Here today representing our 87,000 employees. On april 9 our airlines broke the public trust. In an incident that should never have happened. I apologize again to dr. David dao, his family, every passenger on flight 3411 and all of our customers and employees around the world. I am very sorry our company had an inadequate response to the initial incident. No customer should have ever been treated the way that dr. David dao was. We promise to complete a full analysis of what happened on flight 3411. Including where we fell short. And the actions we needed to take to change the Customer Experience at united. One week ago today we released our report which identified four key failures. First we called on Law Enforcement was safety or security situation did not exist. Second, we both crew at the very last minute even a flight 3411 was full. Third, we failed to provide employees with the authority to offer enough compensation or alternative travel options to give incentive to a passenger to give up a seat. Fourth, perhaps most importantly, our employees did not have the authority to do what was right for our customers. A series of United Airlines policies put our employees, Law Enforcement and our customers in an impossible position. In an industry like ours safety is always top priority. And rules are critical to ensuring safe operations. But in this instance where safety is not the issue, we let rules and operating procedures stand in the way of common sense. Our report announced several immediate and nearterm changes that were making to prevent an issue like this from happening again and improve the Customer Experience. First unless safety or security is an issue we will never again ask a customers give up their seats once they are on board or asked Law Enforcement to remove a customer from a flight. We are giving our employees more authority to offer up to 10,000 to customers when we do have an oversold situation. When a customer chooses to give up their seat, will have a Team Dedicated to finding them alternative travel options. When crew needs to travel on a flight, we will ensure they are both at least an hour before departure. At the same time we also eliminated the red tape around lost bags. By instituting a no questions asked 1500 reimbursement for permanently lost luggage. This is a turning point for United Airlines. I do believe that we are a Better Airline today than we were before. Because of this terrible incident. We will be a Better Airline tomorrow because as these changes are fully implemented. All of us at united are working incredibly hard to reearn your trust. And the trust of our customers around the world. To provide our customers with respect and service that they deserve. Thank you and i look forward to answering any questions that you may have. Thank you mr. Kirby. Good morning. My name is Sharon Pinkerton Senior Vice President of we appreciate the opportunity to be here today. We want the traveling public and the committee to know that the nations airlines are listening. Like you, we find the events that transpired around the implement incident unacceptable. The industry fully accepts that it is our responsibility to ensure that such behavior and disrespect every passenger can never happen again. We also know that the forgotten apologies however, sincere, are no substitute for Meaningful Solutions and action. To meet the responsibility our carriers immediately reviewed why and how the situation develops. And importantly where necessary or systemic changes based on that review. These are not superficial changes could they range from changes in overbooking policies, the process is in place for decisionmaking and enabling frontline employees more discretion and certain situations. Just a few examples of the concrete steps a variety of carriers are taking. Completely eliminating or reducing overbooking. Ensuring that no passenger is involuntarily removed from a flight for another passenger. Renewing their focus. I think this is very important on training for all customer facing staff. To make sure they are taking care of passengers, not just getting them safely from point to point. Finally, providing passengers with more transparency and understanding about what their rights are as consumers. While these are some of the policy change is already being implement it, carriers are continuing to review abroad array of policies to improve Customer Service. Because we know passengers have choices and who they flight. Carriers complete not only on price but also on Customer Service. So every one of the 800 million passengers to flight us carriers annually deserve a safe and pleasant experience. The results of competition i have heard a lot about can be directly seen our recordbreaking improvements in the 2016 dot service metrics. Better on time flight arrivals, better flight completion and nearly 100 percent properly handled band delivery. When our Operation Service metrics improved, it is no surprise so does customer satisfaction. This relationship has been shown in independent service that jd powers has done. They recently reported the north American Airline satisfaction has climbed to a 10 year high. While we have made progress, i know that we need some improvement. For context i do think it is important to recognize that the turmoil of the bankruptcies in this industry, 9 11, mergers, that many carriers went through impacted our employees. They lost pensions. So many carriers were not making the necessary investments in their product and people. We have catching up to do. The Financial Stability of the last six years has enabled industry to make rapid investments of up to 1. 5 billion per month in the Customer Experience. That investment includes new contracts for employees, new planes and driving the improvements we see today. This committee hope to recognize the fact the official date of this clearly shown that Airline Competition is intense. In fact it is thriving. More people are flying today, they are doing so at lower prices to more this destinations than ever. Just last month the bureau of transportation reported that the Fourth Quarter 2016 average bear was down 26 percent from 2000. If you include ancillary fees, 22 percent down. Since 1995, real fares declined 23 percent. If you include ancillary fees, still down almost 20 percent. In addition, such of course america we have seen benefits from the thriving competitive aviation marketplace. While all types of us airports have gotten more air service over the last several years, 176 small and nonhub airports have seen more seats. In addition to seeds airlines have added 198 new routes in 2016 and 151 in 2017. Net expansion of 54 nonstop route to and from us airports. This industry does good things for people by connecting them to the families, friends and being an enabler of business. We hope that the recent but rare although unacceptable incidents do not completely eclipse the dignity and respect shown by airline employees to millions of travelers every day. Airlines recognize that this onus is on us to foster a customer centric culture at each airline. We commit to you and the traveling public this industry will continue to work diligently and quickly to address any actions needed to ensure that all passengers are treated with dignity and respect. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. The association of Flight Attendants represents 50,000 Flight Attendants at 20 airlines and we parted with the Communications Workers of america who represent nearly 20,000 Customer Service agents. Together we help tens of thousands of flights get up in the air safely and even often sometimes inspire smiles. In order to recognize the reality of aviation today we must look back to the change events of september 11, 2001. Following losing our friends and flying partners all professions and industry changed forever. Over 100,000 aviation jobs are lost nearly overnight. Most airlines entered bankruptcy and some did not emerge. We lost on average 40 percent in pay, pensions were terminated, staffing was cut to minimums and many of the amenities of flying were removed as we have fewer tools for weary travelers. Airlines cost billions of dollars and for nearly 10 years, the driving force was to cut costs in every area but executive compensation. Cabin interiors were redesigned with policies closer together. Bankruptcy gave way to Airline Mergers to cut capacity in the industries of planes were fuller than ever with more seats, less legroom and carryon baggage at alltime highs as checked baggage fees when it appeared Flight Attendants are working anywhere from 25 to 50 percent more hours on the job to make ends meet while fatigue studies commissioned by congress or kevin who are not getting enough rest. Even the ticket prices are 40 percent below 1980 levels and adjusted for inflation airlines are making money again because of cuts, ancillary freeze and reduced prices. Both lavish amenities because they are subsidized with over 50 billion from the government. As long as our government fails to enforce this agreement that prohibits this the burden of costcutting will hit further on employees and consumers. American announced just this week the airline is adding more seats to the aircraft by reducing legroom to 29 inches. This is going to have a direct impact on Flight Attendants. Will have to answer to angry passages and raised by the lack of room. Meanwhile the same Flight Attendants are reporting their sick from toxic uniforms and contaminated cabin air. And wall street was in an uproar when their pay was adjusted to an industry average a few weeks ago. At the rate they might cover a families utility bill. Because shareholders why that might be taken out of their returns. Does add another it crew scheduling meltdown that left passengers stranded for nearly a week, the Flight Attendants without a Union Contract left on duty in excess of 24 hours facing passages having to deescalate tensions while standing on hold to get through to the company for more than 10 hours. Everyday Flight Attendants working at us airlines in the us help tens of thousands of flights and millions of positive travel safely to their destination and without incident. This is become more challenging in recent years with saturation aborting and cuts. There is a rising tension on flights and our experience exacerbated by a National Narrative with disrespect for authority decency and decorum. In few responders to manage this pdf quitting conflict between passengers has become a significant portion of the work Flight Attendants perform on each five. Without recognition of our role and authority in the cabin we are very concerned about the dangerous conditions Flight Attendants might be facing at work. When they simply attempted to do Safety Compliance checks they are met with recusal and response, what are you going to do, drag me out of here . We do not have the option to call for help in authorities and on the ground somewhat there is a refusal to respond because they do not want to end up on the news it appeared Flight Attendants are caught in the middle and safety and security will suffer. Aviation safety regulations did not materialize out of thin air. It was a deadly crash of british air flight transport 1985 were some deaths were associated to seating arrangements. Six years later in 1991 and other flight had a tragedy and it was due to the same reasons. Now Flight Attendants are challenged, ignored or chastise for safety checks. Cabin crew are left to wonder what is worse. Failing to comply with federal relations are doing safety sensitive working ending up on the evening news are facing discipline for management for customer did not like the instruction they gave. The reality is that the vast majority passengers come to the plane with kindness in their hearts and a desire to have a peaceful uneventful flight. Look at the focus on aviation. It is a fascinating topic for the public and garners more publicity than almost any other industry. Our airlines crews and passengers applied to every corner of the earth when some can only dream of crossing borders. It is one of our greatest symbols and expressions of freedom. The us industry generates 1. 2 trillion in Economic Activity and supports 10 million jobs. For these reasons it continues to be a target of those who wish to wage war against america. We cannot afford to get this wrong. We cannot afford to dismiss safety and security. Flight attendants cannot effectively do our jobs without passengers recognizing the necessity of following crewmember instructions. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. There simmers to be discussed about staffing, surveillance, security concerns and all realities of aviation today. I look forward to your questions. Thank you ms. Nelson. Ms. Greenberg. Thank you. Good morning chairman and Ranking Member cancel. Members of the aviation subcommittee. I am sally greenberg. Grievances out of arkansas shocking video of dr. David dao and the removal from the airline. And the lack of effective habitation and Consumer Protection in the Airline Industry . What happened on the flight symbolizes a problem that is not unique to united indeed we had subsequent incidents on others which should not go viral. How in the Airline Industry has become dangerously unbalanced. It is time for congress to take action. To assure consumers that the next time they buy they will not become the unwitting star of a viral video. How have we got here . Competition or the lack there of. In the last decade alone mergers have reduced nine Large Airlines to four. American, delta, southwest and united. Together the four control more than 80 percent of all domestic flights. At a staggering 90 to the top 100 airports only one of which control the majority of the seats. In 2007 to 2013 1. 2 million scheduled domestic flights were eliminated. As the big four carriers gobbled up competitors for smaller communities in particular were hard hit by this march toward oligopoly could for example in 2008 san antonio lost approximately 600 jobs on at t relocated Corporate Headquarters in dallas. The Company Actually said in a press release being headquartered near leading air transportation facilities is critical to Global Companies like at t and in the Airline Industry continues to consolidate and reduce hubs and flights. The industry has also started to generate profits by literally squeezing passengers. Lesser average topped 80 percent for the eighth consecutive year. The average distance between rows as senator nelson has described in great detail, the average distance before regulation it was 35 inches. Today it is about 31 inches. American airlines as senator nelson indicated is set to even reduce that distance to smaller sizes. So americans are getting bigger. We are getting heavier and we are being crammed into smaller and smaller spaces. So all of this consolidation has resulted in higher prices for consumers despite what you might hear this morning. A wall street journal analysis of airfares including addon fees from that from 2007 to 2014 a. Coinciding with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression for the price of the average roundtrip domestic flight increased nearly 15 percent. Independent numbers and in contrast to industry claims it has never been better or cheaper to fly. There are steps that congress could take and should take in the near term to address the worst impacts of the lack of competition. First, as united incident really illustrated there are policies that can lead to shockingly negative outcomes for consumers. Involuntary should never occur. Airlines should be required to have interline agreements with other airlines. To ensure that paying passengers were bumped make it to the final destination with as little delay as possible. Second, the power imbalance between airlines and passengers can no longer lie solely with the airlines. For example consumer should be made aware and clear and conspicuous language of the rights of the time that they purchased the tickets at the gate and ticket counters. They need to be held accountable for promises. Third, this seems to be no limit to outrageous charges for basic necessities such as guaranteed seeds, a piece of luggage or the need to reschedule a flight. And 10 national and consumer organizations support the senators fair fees act which would prohibit airlines charging cancellation baggage and other ancillary fees that are unreasonable or disproportionate to the cost incurred by the air carrier. The dot should also strengthen the consumers protection policies to match those available to people for things like compensation finally congress to pass a comprehensive passenger bill of rights which addresses these and other pressing consumer priorities such as minimum state standards and fair policies overall. In conclusion, consumers are angry. They are frustrated, we need members of the subcommittee to be in our corner to promote Consumer Rights and protections and restore some semblance of balance and fairness between passengers and the airlines. Thank you to members of the subcommittee for inviting us, inviting the consumer perspective. I look forward to your questions. Thank you mrs. Greenberg. There will be a number of members here and we will try to keep our questions to five minutes in the order that people came to the committee with the exception of the chairman if he shows up we will give him the same courtesy we gave the Ranking Member when he was here. Mr. Kirby, what kind of flexibility do your gate agents and your Flight Attendants have in terms of trying to deal with overbooking . And while you are dealing with that, it is my understanding even in the normal rules that nobody made an offer that was the maximum offer that a passenger could be offered under those rules. Thank you senator. First, the situation was not due to overbooking as most situations occur for operation reasons. We cant take the full load of passengers along with a full load of passengers produce particular situation, our employees are authorized to go out to a certain limit and they concluded on the airplane that no one was going to go even at that limit. So it is not clear why they did not go all the way to the limit. But what we have done and clear findings from this are that we need to give employees more tools and more flexibility. Thats why going up to 10,000 and creating this alternative travel desk we can get people to different destinations that might be close to their home. We believe that we will be able to drive involuntary close to zero. That is one of our goals. To get this close to zero we can accommodate all customers in a way that customers view as a winwin situation. Would you say more people are taken off the planes arent not put on planes because of weight and safety issues than selling receipts . Yes, sir. The vast majority of boardings. About two thirds, and united is two thirds of involuntary denied boardings come from operational issues. Usually Weight Restrictions for an aircraft swab. Those operation issues where you have to take 20 or 30 passengers off an airplane are where we have involuntary denied boardings. Overbooking usually has 1 to 2 passengers that are over the limit. Generally speaking, we can get someone to volunteer by giving them alternative compensation and alternative travel arrangements. The vast majority of those cases, looking at the customer that volunteers. We do that is a winwin if the customer accepts alternative compensation and we have left them satisfied. Commissioner, you have said that the, what happened with the flight that dr. David dao was on was not in accordance with your guidelines or Law Enforcement or the police officials, how do categorize by the way people do this job for you at the airport . Turn your mic on let me make sure we have this right. How do we refer to the people i get on the plane . They are referred to as aviation Security Officers. They are not sworn, nonarms security personnel. Their primary responsibility is to enforce the federal security laws. Alarm doors, make sure that people who are in certain areas of the airport have the proper badge. They patrolled the perimeters to make sure that why do you think they did not conform to what you say your procedures were . You know the details of exactly what was said is being thoroughly investigated by the inspector general. In terms of what they were thinking or why they did was they did, i have to wait for the findings of that report to know. I obviously do not know at this point. Do think it is a lack of training . We certainly will enhance our training. I think that it is such an infrequent event. It really is not ever an event. We cannot actually find another instance. It is so infrequent for in particular, those officers. Normally a Chicago Police who boards the plane, we have made it clear in the future that does aviation Security Officers will not board the plane. There to her Chicago Police. We have six andahalfmillion passengers a month. That go through ohare. 6 and a half million a month this is a very rare occurrence. This, there is no question that this training for an infrequent event needs to be enhanced because of the severity of it. Certainly the directives need to be crystal clear. Just one quick question here. We have to be concise or i will violate my own rule to try to keep this to five minutes. I may have to ask this but my question will be both united and commissioner evans just if people are not going to get on planes anymore except with great, lets see one phrase was great physical risk. What does that do if youre on the plane to your ability to deal with a passenger who does not want to be dealt with . And we are on the plane and someone does not want to be dealt with we had to advocate through the flight deck that we have a security concern. And in those cases we should be having a assistance from Law Enforcement. There are other tools of the airline can use and we will be working together as a team with the flight deck, with Ground Service coordinators and may be that the entire plan needs to be deplanes. These are some of the tools that we have today to be mobile with that. But we do need the assistance of Law Enforcement when it is a safety or security issue. Will see how this goes and if i need to come back to this topic later. Ms. Cantwell. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I listened to the testimony across the board and appointment no one has fought harder during this time that wall street prices drove fuel for airlines up quadrupling. So we were there and many people came and participated in those press conferences and what it was doing to the industry. I was also there when last year or two years ago we put an faa bill together and did not give the Flight Attendants the same breath time as pilots. We should correct that this time and make sure there is even. I understand the larger challenges to the Airline Industry. But it is still no excuse for dehumanizing aspects of passenger travel and making them part of someones business plan. We have to come back and look at the stress that is being caused on the system as we have deregulated and put this in a game of monopoly by not giving the passengers a fair end of the stick. I do want to get to ms. Greenberg about what you think is in the passenger bill of rights. Because i have my own ideas what should be in there. And i want to make sure i understand correctly, are you saying that dr. David daos fight was not an overbooked flight . No maam, it was overbooked by one but we had a customer removed from the flight before boarding. The situation with dr. David dao was not caused by overbooking, it was caused by putting four members on the airplane after the flight was already boarded. Policies that we changed, we will never have that happen again. What you consider that . 24 crew members on a flight . In this case it was just wrong. I think your definition of overbooking that was wrong. So you are crossing words event does not give me the faith that you fully understand the severity of the situation. By that i mean that the airlines are treating passengers as an algorithm. They are part of a computerbased system where when you want to take someone off the flight, you go to the person as in dr. David daos case. Does not have a frequent flyer, paid the lowest bear, checked in at the last boarding time. Youre basically thinking by algorithms we want to kick off of a fight. And to not think that youre saying overbooking in his hearing this morning does not include your crewmembers, you have cute but saint for the perimeters but you then cannot get an exemption on that is not overbooking. So i am really befuddled by the fact that your parsing this this morning in a way that makes me think that you know this is whats going to end up in the passenger bill of rights. Were going to tell you how you can and cannot operate that affects the traveling public. Not going to turn them into an algorithm and that some will get booted off and communicating this week. Im sorry im not communicating well. We use the term overbooking to be very specific where the airlines are selling more seats than there are on the airplane. You cans compensated travel plan where your crew is part of that and stop using them as an addition to the overbooking. You need to compensate for them before. Yes, maam. Equipped to legislate that we will. Because we are not going to run into the same situation. Yes maam we do usually do that but in this case the previous flight was canceled. That is why they were being booked last minute. We typically book them and take a seat out of inventory for them. What you think we should do in this where they still want a little here on changes and lights and schedules and getting crew to a certain location . What you think we should do about that . Well i think the issue of overbooking these days is really a thing of the past. Every passenger who pays has paid upfront for the ticket. There should be no instances when you pay for a ticket and youre sitting in your seat where you are taking off of the flight. We do not understand why that needs to happen since the airlines, in the old days airlines were outofpocket because people make reservations on five different flights and would not show up for perhaps four of them. But now the airlines have that money in the bank. And so we think that they ought to accommodate the fact that all the seats are paid for. And i do not understand why we continue to have this problem with overbooking. Invite Airlines Continue to overbook and are pocketing those profits sometimes twice over. What do you think any of the, who should be making these decisions in the context of now we are hearing from the airlines that they are no longer going to do this. Theyre going to compensate people in a range of fees but my question is who is going to decide that . And who is going to make these decisions along the way . I just feel like the airlines or basically, they are leaving too much of this to interpretation at the gate level. And we need to build a culture and a culture within the airlines who are going to have management who are responsible for these kinds of decisions and actions. Not just pushing it down either to the Flight Attendant or the gate people to enforce. One thing to mentor we like to see a European Union style where you are guaranteed a certain level of compensation for a fight that is canceled, delayed depending on how long it is delayed and the distance you are going. European consumers have far more robust Consumer Protections. Then we do in the United States and we do not understand why that should be. Hq. Senator. Mr. Fermi, since the incident in chicago, how has business been at united . So this was a horrible incident that was terrible and shameful to all of us at united. For the most part everything out that united is going really well. That is one of the things that is also disappointing to us. Because operationally united is running the best airline in history that we have ever run. How is your, how are your boardings . Have you had as many bookings as before . ,it is impossible for us to see in the data. How has the stock been the last three weeks since the incident . Our stock initially went down but has recovered since. In fact is higher now than it was the day of the incident. Is that correct . Yes, sir. What do you think that says . I think it says that youve got the passenger where you want him. I think it says there is not enough competition in the industry and people that had to play with united before still have to play with united if they want to get somewhere. And there really is no choices of business is really back where it was. I remarked to my wife when i heard this on t. V. How much the stock had dropped. If in my disclosing i were not a public official i would have seen this as a buying opportunity. Because it was obvious to me that the passengers had nowhere else to go. And so it is not surprising to me that your stock is returned because basically, you, your boardings are going to be about the same. If the passenger, if the traveling public wants to boycott united, as a result of this outrageous incident, would you say you have corrected they really do not have a way to boycott you. Do they . So theres a lot of competition and they have a way to boycott. I like to think the stock recovery is because we truly are going to fix the airline and customers at the center of everything we do. And that is, the commitment that we adopted is going to help us not only improve for customers it will help us improve for our employees and we will get better results for shareholders. We absolutely are committed to improving and our customers do have choices. There is great competition in the industry. Ms. Greenberg what is your view on this . We have an extremely concentrated industry. With 80 percent of flights across the country being run by for airlines. If i fly out of chicago, i pretty much in many instances there is no place for me to go if i want to boycott united. Is that correct. That is correct. Passengers just have to give basis to 640 of the largest 100 airports, Single Airline controls the majority of the market. At a staggering 93 of the top 100 airports, one or two airlines control majority of seats and an increase from 70 airports in 1995. How are we doing of people with disabilities . Particularly disabled veterans. It is my understanding that in 2015, 30,000 valid disability related complaints with the airlines. In 2016, 862 complained directly to the federal government. In 2015 994 complained directly to the federal government. Ms. Pinkerton, how are the airlines doing in that regard . We have paid attention to in the last couple of years in fact the last faa extension bill that this Committee Passes to provisions relating to access for the disabled. I sat in on the first issue that was mandated and that was the study to look at how carriers are training our prayer with respect to how they handle wheelchairs, damaged wheelchairs eccentric. From that, deity created new training that carries are incorporated into their own training. But the second issue is that you are required a rulemaking. And that lawmaking got underway with negotiated rulemaking carriers sat down with the disabled community and dot and engage in a negotiated homemaking. We came up with longterm and shortterm solutions for those agreements. For the long term we agreed on a larger lavatory for single aisle planes good in the short term there were three things. Again related to training and better information. Both the disabled community about what their rights were but also for airline crew and also there is a label that will be put on planes that have an international standard. That is like a Good Housekeeping seal of approval if they meet certain criteria. And with respect i know senator cantwell is that he or she mentioned the paralyzed veterans. We have been ongoing having dialogue with them. They have asked us not to talk publicly yet about what agreements we are coming to but i can tell you that those conversations are progressing. My response is that we recognize this is an issue and we have been taking it seriously working on it. I think things are changing. But if i can please take the opportunity to respond to your concerns about competition because it is a narrative i have heard anything the reason the narrative about there is no competition does not work is because we have proof that there is competition. And the proof is not appointed to the wall street journal article but according to the bureau of transportation statistics, fears are lower today than they are have been. As a percentage of disposable income. They are down 20 percent from 1995. We have got more seats added. I think you missed my Opening Statement that small and nonhub airports have actually seen increases in seats. Weve added a net of 54 new destinations. And, you were talking about Customer Service earlier. The independent studies that jd powers and the American Consumers satisfaction index i think one of the reasons you have not seen the stock changes because people realize that what was a completely accessible event and should never happen again, was extremely rare. And it is not indicative of the things that are employees served to the traveling public and the 2. 2 million passengers in 27,005 that we fly every day. Thank you. Senator thank you very much senator and chairman for holding this. Many of the members are here today, i think everyone was outraged by this video. Deeply disturbing video of the plane. Executives not a great addition never happened and it was a result of a series of failures and some broad policies. And of course the focus of todays nearby if i am not just a single incident but to make sure that passengers are treated fairly and with the respect they deserve. This has been a focus that i have had for quite a while with the passenger bill of rights. And i pushed hard for some of the other safety and cost measures that we worked on i will start with you here this is clearly one of the failures is not offering passengers greater compensation to volunteer to be pumped when there are so many over bookings on the flight. He reports state that the gate agent never offered more than 800. I understand uniteds new policy allows volunteers to be compensated after 10,000. Will frontline employees be authorized to offer up to this level of compensation in all cases auras are going to be restrictions . Humana for the question. Thank you maam for the question. One of the other things we are doing is also having annual recurrent training to help gate agents with the process and with deescalating situations as well. One of the findings we did not do an adequate job of the current trend gate agents so that they were able to deal with this really difficult situation and our practice going to the top of the limit were inconsistent and this training will help will get us to consistency with all of our employees. You mentioned in your testimony that united made adjustments to overbooking policies. That they will be a reduction in over bookings on flights that historically have experienced lower volunteer rates. Smaller aircraft, i want to make sure this will have a real impact how significant will the reduction in overbooking be for these flights . And will united continue overbooking at the same rates for a flight outside of these categories . Thank you again for the kind of reductions we talked about i will give you one simple statistic. For we tend to have the most problems if you overbuy one is two percent. There were 200 cqo over by and a half a percent. On 50 seat regional jets about 50 percent of the flights were overbooked by one. Could be overbooked by one. And they will not go to zero. On a small regional jets just as a data point it is about a reduction of half of the flights. And as for the rest of the system we will be lowering it across the board. Partly because the cost of the boarding is now higher. It will go up to 10,000. And i will start with ms. Greenberg. In your testimony you call airline contracts indecipherable legal tones. I like that. You have a suggestion how to make it easier for Airline Passengers to understand their rights . Yes, we believe that there ought to be europeanstyle posters around letting consumers know what their rights are. We believe there ought to be a list of compensation and required compensation if you are pumped involuntarily. If your flight is canceled, if the flight is delayed after a certain amount of time. Though the rights and protection. Those would be things that will be required to be put up in airports. Right and that is what you see in the European Union. We want those kind of protections and transparency and information for consumers in the United States as well. Thank you very much. Ms. Nelson thank you for the information of the Human Trafficking and the bill that we pass it together. In your testimony discussed the verbal and physical assaults on Flight Attendants in the wake of some of these incidents. Say Flight Attendants can get caught in the middle of an up against them mentality. This will make it harder for them to perform duties. What Additional Support outside of the training that mr. Kirby mentioned do you think that airlines should give Flight Attendants to ensure that they can do their job safely and effectively . Thank you very much senator. One of the issues we have seen over the last several years is that the faa move from instruction from an force to inform passengers. This put us in a matter of doing Safety Compliance checks but not really having the ability to enforce the so some people are able to sort of get away with not following Safety Policies that could put everyone in danger and others are not. This is over no problem. The biggest problem that we see that we do not have the staffing that we used to have prior to september 11 2001. So as emr passengers and capacity has been cut and plans are for than ever we do not have enough Flight Attendants to get situations to deescalate because frankly the nations Flight Attendants do an incredible job of deescalating conflict every single day with all of the fights getting out without incident. And we are saying this is something we have to deal with every single day. So if there are more of us to be able to do that work we can do it more effectively. We also see that at the gate where now because there are minimums on the plane and minimums at the gate we cannot effectively communicate with each other. Also we have problems coming down to the airplane door more often because we do not staffing at the gate. Gate agents are not counting the things that they would normally be catching in the gate area. That creates conflict than on the plane. Heres are some of the issues we are facing. We would like to be a part of influencing the policy to make sure they are done in a way that works on the plane. Thank you very much. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you all for being here. Today is the beginning rather than the end of congresss oversight role in protecting not only consumers but also people who work on airlines. I want to begin, ms. Nelson with a question to you. Thank you and everybody who works with you, everyone who serves on our planes. For their immense service and often sacrifice to the airlines for whom they work and customers who rely on them and the many heroic acts that you mentioned in your testimony. Can you give me some assessment of air quality in that cabin . Because a lot of people get on the plane and they have no concept of what they may be encountering. This has been an issue for the union for three decades. We worked to get smoking of the planes, decrease the spraying of pesticides or people can have clean air. But we have an issue still remaining and that is the air that is bled off of the engines into the cabin. It can become contaminated and can bring poisons into the toxins which will affect the crew. Oftentimes at a higher rate because they are working harder their heart is pumping harder. But this has caused some basic illness and feeling fatigued and having headaches to longterm effects. We wanted to be safe and secure for all of us. And the only difference is Airline Attendants spend more time and are exercising more so they are breathing more deeply but it affect the passengers as well. And lets not forget those who are flying the plane and probably children who are fine because they have smaller bodies, smaller lungs, and what they breathe is likely to affect the more. Let me just say to all of you in the short time that i have that i am working on a passenger bill of rights that will expand the current right that are and our statutes one thing is clear to me from this united episode and from countless other instances but that thats spreading more information about them that will be corrected by the Airlines Acting voluntarily. Their only voluntary and by other airlines raising compensation levels or providing limits to keep passengers stuck on the tarmac, refunds for law services or damage bags. Those kind of roles are and again those are completely voluntary. They are to be made a matter of statute and be expanded because consumers need real rights and thats why i will introduce the passengers bill of rights as this Committee Considers an faa reauthorization bill in the coming weeks. I am open to working with you. Ive outlined some provisions which are raising compensation levels the present cap at 1350 to multiples of the ticket price when passengers are bound to. I understand the airlines argument that it has to overbook for profit, but they also have to bear the financial burden that right now is passed to consumers. When those flights are overbooked and the flights are bumped. I will propose legislation that will stop the kind of bumping we see now and will provide for greater compensation for passengers and roper habit taking passengers off planes involuntarily and the use of lawenforcement for that purpose, along with other measures and compensation for delays in cancellation, right of action by individuals against airlines with substantial for punitive damages which will send a financial as well as moral message and other steps providing for greater disclosure of fees and charges in connection with bags, check bags, carryon luggage and so forth. It is a rough and incomplete outline. I would like to submit to this panel that you will work with me on this endeavor. Is there anybody who would object to these ideas . For at least working with me on them . Would be happy to work with you senator. Happy to work with you. I just note that many of the things you have outlined whether eliminating the cap on compensation, saying we are not going to take a person off of the play, not calling Law Enforcement, all of those things are things that carriers have said voluntarily theyre willing to do. They are doing those in implementing those today. My time has expired. Thank you mr. Chairman. I thank you and the senator for holding this hearing today and it is particularly timely, unfortunately there have been recent it incidents that have evolved Airline Passengers gone way beyond even what seasoned travelers have other ever seen. While we sell at the video with United Express flight in chicago three weeks ago was shocking. If theres anything positive i think its a fact that Many Airlines seem to be changing policies as a result of internal reviews and selfexamination. That is exactly what should happen. I hope the attention that is now being paid and treatment of passengers will leave to longterm and meaningful improvements in the Passenger Experience. If not therell be increasingly it interest on this committee and in the congress. I want to say the same time, i think, i hope its really important that passenger frustrations dont lead to unnecessary confrontation. Safety is still the paramount consideration in air travel in the current level of safety is something we can all be proud. We do not want anyone to resist lawful and appropriate instructions from it others that might impact that record. I think everybody would agree that sometimes more patience and understanding would go a long way. Commissioner evans, before the recent United Airlines incident, how common was it for your department to board an aircraft and what type of situations where they typically do it dealing with. It is very rare for the aviation Security Officers. Normally Chicago Police make those responses, we are correcting that, this was a situation, we do not know of anything similar in our records. Most commonly the complaints that come our unruly passengers, someone who will not obey the instruction of a flight crew or an altercation between two passengers of some sort. Thats the most common response type of disturbance we get on the aircraft. It is fairly rare. I commented earlier that we have six and have million passengers a month through ohare. Total dispatch for disturbances in a month somewhere between 15 and 20. On an aircraft maybe four or five. In total there fairly rare. On a minuscule percentage. They had been extremely well handled in the past. We are terribly sorry this one was not handled properly. Mr. Kirby, the april 9 incident had a big impact on United Airlines and frankly the entire industry. How confident are you the steps you and your company are taking will actually prevent another incident from occurring . Thank you. Im highly confident the situation that occurred cannot happen again. The policies would not allow it to happen again. But, we are going to take it beyond that. We have used this to be a watershed moment for United Airlines. And go beyond preventing this from happening and to truly put the customer at the center of what we do and hope this will have a silverlining we believe it will make us a Better Airline today than we were before. By the change of focus. There are always and we know this factors that are outside your control. Consumers to have an expectation they will get what they pay for when they buy an airline ticket. As a followup to that, what steps is united taking to more generally improve but can sometimes be a stressful travel experience for customers, especially in light of the knowledge that outside factors can upset the normal operating plan. It is true that travel can be a stressful experience. United airlines we have a terrible incident this month or last month, we are proud of the progress weve made in running a better operation. In 2016 we set alltime record in a 2017 were set a new records. We went 145 hours without a flight cancellation, thats over 10000 flights. Our employees are delivering phenomenal Customer Service. I cannot walk around the city of chicago without hearing what a great job are Flight Attendants are doing. Were growing 6 the summer which is more options for customers. We feel good about the future. Something like this should not of happen. We have a rule space culture which is appropriate for safety get in the way for common sense it comes work customer. Seems like to be an operating plan for some of these outside factors, maybe not frequent. Is nothing coming on members of the frontline of an industry what are the possible consequences that they start questioning from Flight Attendants. This could cause a safety problem for everyone on board. When Flight Attendants are uninformed when the seatbelt sign is on we saw recently the incredible injuries on the flight where they had turbulence and people were flown. If you are up you could enter other people on the plane. If not following the instructions it can cause harm to the people around. We also have some very serious concerns about the videotaping of broadcasting of crew movements. Also showing frankly the diversionary tactics that could be used to divert crew from their safety and security functions and also to divert crew from being able to instruct passengers when we need help to contain a security concern. These are our concerns in addition to the fact that there is an atmosphere out there right now that Flight Attendants are facing that is generally dangerous. We have reports of people who are touched Flight Attendants inappropriately. When they were told to stop they have said what are you going to do, drinking out of here . This is not okay. Thats what theyre facing on the front lines. We need backing from the regulatory agencies to talk about the role that we have, to the point of having placards in the gate area needs to be reinforced for safety and security concern. We need more staff to handle these and deescalate. The reality is when aviation workers across industry saw the video we were horrified. Its not a representation of who we are, how we take care of our passengers every single day and how we care very deeply about making this a good experience for the people in our care. Thank you. Senator nelson. I think that is certainly a true statement that you said. If anybody wants to feel good about an airline, watch the movie solely, but the captain sullenberger in the way that crew operated under extremely dangerous circumstances which is not a hollywood made up movie. That was real life. You saw the Flight Attendants working with the captain who is less want to get off the plane . The captain. So indeed, i want to shift gears a bit. I know you have been beat upon mr. Kirby. And of course, people are upset about all of this that is happen. Lets shift gears a bit. Lets talk about things that make common sense. So, in the past month i flew united since i got to the airport at the appointed time and my flight was late. I looked and on the board there is an earlier flight that is going to my destination. It was late. So i walked to that gate and in fact they were loading passengers and in fact they had seats. So, i said, i am on the next flight. I would like to go on this flight if you have seats. They had seats but said that will be 75 extra. Now, i was on official business and i did not think that was a good expenditure of senate funds, but it was a policy of the airline that made no sense. You had seats and by the way, on the next flight which was mine, you didnt have seats. So by me going on the earlier flight it wouldve opened up a seat for the later flight and yet, i was, according to your policy going to be required to pay an additional 75. It is those kind of rules that maybe you have a reason for, but it just doesnt make sense. It is not in your interest either. Because, you need to accommodate. Ill give you another example. Major airlines, including united typically charge consumers 200 or more for changing or canceling a domestic flight. Change fees for International Flights can run many hundred dollars. So now it appears that united has introduced a new type of fair, basic economy is what you call it where no changes are allowed at all. In that case, consumers would lose the entire value of the ticket. So, when booking the consumer typically receives little notice of all these additional penalties. So, what is the correlation for you between changing cancellation fees and the cost actually incurred by united . Thank you for your business and i apologize for the bad experience you had on united. Thats not a bad experience. That is a policy that you all lost a seat that you couldve filled on an oversold flight. Eight yes we have an off schedule operation is shouldve let you get on that flight but i will confirm that after the hearing. Our basic economy product which you referred to is one that first week try to clearly communicate to customers the restrictions associated with that product. The goal is to offer low fares. Were trying to offer customers choice. One of the great things in a deregulated environment is that were offering customers more choice. For those willing to give up some of those restrictions and accept the restrictions of no changeability they get a lower price. We think its good for consumers so far in our test about 30 or 35 of customers are choosing that lower fare. Sixty or 65 are choosing the regular economy fair which cost more but comes with more restrictions. I recognize the frustration around change fees. It is part of our view of lets lets us offer low fare for those customers who bought in advance. We offer fares that are fully changeable and, no penalties or restrictions. They are more expensive. Its part of our policies and part of the rationale is by offering customers choice in different products we can let the customer choose what is most appropriate for them. Does it save you money . Its not a direct cost when somebody changes if that is a the question. Its about 900 million of revenue at it United Airlines in 2016. If it doesnt save you money you may want to put yourself in the place of the consumer. Things come up. They need to change their flig flight, but it then become so prohibitive that they cant. Therefore, they are inconvenienced and if theres not a direct cost associated to you that you are having to pay, you may want to think of it, put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. Mr. Chairman, i know we have a lot of members and im going to stop. What i would like to do is insert for the record for mr. Kirby some questions about his it systems. And then to ms. Pinkerton questions about Airline Passenger bill of rights, and to ms. Pinkerton and mr. Kirby, questions about interline agreement. Every member will have a chance to summit questions for the record. Think mr. Chairman. Ms. Nelson, i was enjoying your comments. My daughterinlaw is a retired Flight Attendant. Ive heard a lot of things before. I can probably add a few things that you have done and said. You hear a lot of negative things about the industry. It happens, maybe i am biased because american has a huge few prints in my state of oklahoma. And in fact, i have worked with them over the years when i was mayor of tulsa and things will come up. My experience actually has been good in terms of them focusing on using technology to swiftly inform consumers the disruption in the travel. They have actually invested billions of dollars in airport terminals in all of these things. There are some things going on that have been good. In my experience. This pinkerton, when we talk about the ways to change things, there any obstacles that airlines have, not been able to do some of the things that we might be thinking they could do. Other obstacles out there that make it more difficult to make changes . I would note that the Mercator Center had said the Airline Industry is a sixmonth most highly regulated in the country. Some of the things are safety regulations. Essays even with some of the safety regulations the way there implemented in a onesizefitsall, whether that is flight into the role or the 1500 hour rule. I think there are modifications that can be made so theres not the Operational Impact that we see from some of the rules. Some of the things that give us more pause are the economic rules of the industry. The things like full fair advertising role that tell us you cannot advertise your product. You would have to advertise it all in. We are one of the few industries that is required of. There is a push not to try to force us to do business with certain people. For example cheapo air. Theres move that says you have to give your fares and information to cheapo air. We would like to be able to make those decision ourselves of who we do business with. Its things like that where we like to see Less Government intervention. A lot of the rulemaking are wellintentioned, but they and up tying our hands and costing consumers more. We are here talking about the consumer, think one of the things the consumer values is the low fares that weve been able to bring in more service. So wrinkly the more financially stable we are and the more freedom we have to do her business were going to be able to lower fares in and seats, will pay up the place more and at our jobs. We been doing that. You have to make those considerations. Ive listen to a lot of really good ideas expressed by people in maybe the pilots bill of rights or something, but luck. Mr. Kirby, what you have done and i guess the question would be the tragedy of that flight, thats awful to see the pictures and the public is out there and theres a level of outrage that is unprecedented that i had not seen before. What you have done in 30 days is amazing. You have already settled the lawsuit, you have increased the incentive to passengers to give up their seats and a lot of other things. Ive been around a long time, we may have solutions in the government but i dont recall any time that we have been able to work as fast as you have in correcting a problem. So i want to keep that in mind. I dont know of a lot of things that can be done. I am concerned and i want to ask you this. It might be unfair so go back to ms. Pinkerton. Do you think that a lot of new federal laws and regulations imposed as a response of this incident could cause more issues than it would resolve . I absolutely do. A onesizefitsall approach does not work for this industry. We have seen that time and again with unintended consequences. The tarmac delay rule ended up causing more cancellations of people were more inconvenienced by. What we see todays airlines recognize that we need to step up on Customer Service. Were willing to do that voluntarily. Its to your benefit. This idea that you have to be forced to do these things, youre the guy pays for this. I think everybody would agree. When i was chairman for a number of years of the committee called the environment a public works all the regulations came and most were epa regulations. What we tried to do was say that any regulation that comes along you have to put a price tag on it. I would admonish my friends if i was involved in the various proposed legislation. You can make these changes but it will cost you. You said a minute ago the cost of the ticket is a huge thing. Everything that ive heard suggested will impact that. I think it might be a good idea for anybody who comes up with these good ideas to give credible evidence as to how that will affect the most important aspect in my opinion, that is the cost of their ticket. Were going to work through these questions. If anybody needs to take a break on the panel, slice you take those brakes one at a time we can probably get to you by the time you get back. My experiences this would be a good time for everybody to take a break. [laughter] thank you mr. Chairman. Let all the other passengers strapping your seatbelts. There right could be rocky before the end of the steering. Airline fees are as high as the planes the passengers are fine now. It is time to start their rapid ascent. Today, several airlines charge 200dollar change and cancellation fees which may be greater than the value of the original ticket. Thats on top of charging as much as 25 for the first checked bag, 35 for the second bank. That is 120 to do a round trip with two bags. Last year, airlines 4. 2 billion and baggage fees and 2. 9 billion in change and cancellation fees. The 7. 1 billion in one year. Passengers are getting tipped upside down at the ticket counter and they deserve relief from these excessive fees. Regrettably, the fee epidemic is growing. Some airlines are charging passengers for carryon bags, to print boarding passes, and for blankets to keep their children warm. That is outrageous. The airline seem to have replace the Customer Service counter with the customer suffering counter as they get the bill for each one of these things which they should expect to come with line. Passenger frustration with lack of choice and outrageous fees continues to rise. That is why i reintroduce the fair fees act which ensures that airline fees are reasonable and proportional to the cost of the services provided. Senator blumenthal and i are introducing that bill. The fair fees that puts a stop to fee gouging and will help ensure passengers are fine the fair friendly skies. My bill will finally ground these ridiculous fees. Ms. Greenberg, is it reasonable to charge passengers 200 to change or cancel their flight even if the passenger changes their reservations well in advance, even if the passenger purchase the ticket for less than 200 . Even if the airline resells the sea to another passenger at an even higher price . Is that fair . Senator markey, we think these Airline Cancellation fees are outrageous. They dont look at accommodating changes or cancellations. As you indicated they can resell the seat perhaps more expensively than the original cost. In 2016 they brought a nearly 3 billion in revenue. Things happen. Peoples transplants change. Somebody might get sick and youre stuck. Theres no forgiveness for those fees. Passengers let us know how frustrated they are about this. We support your bill because we think there ought to be a relationship between the cost of rebooking somebody and what the passenger is expected to pay. This is a standard carryon bag. Millions of passengers all across the country are forced to jam a weeks worth of clothing into this bag to avoid paying an additional 120. Traveling from boston to l. A. For a week . Of course not. You have to carry your belongings your toiletries so no, you have no choice. So the bottom line is that these fees are just not reasonable and im going to fight very hard to make sure that these fees are checked and this at they authorization bill which we will be considering. Ms. Nelson could you give us your view on mobile devices on planes in the passenger cabin . Can you tell us how the Flight Attendants be that . The Flight Attendants view voice conversations in the in the same mistake to look use them. We do not want on that on the plane. This will create more complex on the plane and the d. O. T. Or the faa written authorization bill we should put the final nail in the call from this and make sure there are no voice calls in the cabin. We have very serious security concerns and we also have flight concerns. Thank you. I agree with you 100 . Senator hassan. Thank you mr. Chairman to member and thank you to the panelists here. I know its a long morning. We all agree that this incident in which united removed a passenger from the aircraft was unacceptable so i think a lot of us are trying to do was turn to next steps. I want to acknowledge that united and other airlines have begun efforts to make reforms so this kind of treatment to customers never happens again i thank mr. Kirby for that but to the point some of the other senators have raised, this incident does not represent just a one time occurrence or a onetime mistreatment to constituents across the Granite State and im sure many individuals in this very room have experienced routinely unpleasant flying episodes on one of the major airlines. In fact last year the department of transportation which tracks incidents like these received 17,900 complaints across the industry and those are just cases that are reported. I understand about percentages and statistics but if you are one of the those 17,904 people, statistics tell make much of a difference to you. Its not acceptable that we have this level of difficult occurrences and we cant just throw up our hands and say thats the way it has to be or in my view and many of my constituents can we just say voluntary action by the airlines is up. Thats why ive introduced along with some of my colleagues the ticket act which would review overbooking policies, guarantee paying customers have a right and make some other commonsense reforms. I am glad that united is taking voluntary measures presents a nice message but its not the same thing as a guarantee. Consumers want to know that united will change its mind later when the industry changes are the finances change so i believe consumers deserve to fly safely and comfortable particularly at a time when industry is earning record prophets and believe me my constituents are we are about to. Mr. Kirby and ms. Pinkerton will you commit to making working with me and my staff as we approach the faa authorization and measures on this ticket act that includes customers . We are very happy to work with you senator. I do want to urge caution and i think as we discussed previously many of the items that are in your legislation to make sense and that is why carriers stepped up and said yes it doesnt make sense for us to remove the passenger from a plane. That said i do urge caution in going into this mandatory onesizefitsall approach because what we have seen in the past is that there are unintended consequences and it does end up increasing the cost of travel which and i know all of the members on this committee feel strongly about service to their local communities and that gets impacted too so we need to be cognizant. I understand that. Uis have to balance this but a lot of my constituents would say the airlines treat them in a onesizefitsall manner and that they are not treated as individuals and customers have rights. We are democracy and peoples money is supposed to have value and buy them a certain expected experience. We agree. Thank you. Yes maam absolutely the or to engaging with you and your staff on all these issues. Nick thank you and ms. Greenberg do you have thoughts on the tickets ticket act . We support the ticket act. Offers a lot of positive advocates to consumers including the issue of not allowing involuntary lumping and it eliminating limits on the compensation for bus bumping and limiting overbooking and requiring appropriate disclosures by the carrier so yes we think its a great bill and we look forward to working with you on it. Thank you and because my time is running down and its been a long day i will submit my other two questions for the record. I just want you to know that not only do i share the concerns about whether overbooking is still a makes sense in this day and age, im very concerned that airlines have had policies that am the passengers who either are frequent flyer members or have bought the lowest priced tickets first because they are often people who can afford to buy higher priced tickets are become frequent flyers. That seems unfair and finally i will just note ms. Nelson i look forward to working with you on somebodys issues raised on the half of flight Flight Attendants. We all appreciate the difficult work you all do and the importance of being able to deescalate and help people travel safely. Thank you very much senator. Thank you senator. Senator heller. Mr. Chairman thank you i want to thank our panel for being here. Its been a long day but i would like to get to my questions. The first questions i want to make sure we are all in on the same page and that is that we realize that air flight and passenger care does determine the quality of the quality of the nature of an individual goes on. The reason im saying this is obviously an estate like nevada tourism is an important function for us. Its not just las vegas its hawaii or orlando or new york. Air travel is just as important sometimes as the experience they may happen their destination. I tell you that to say this, a few years ago a gentleman from nevada who builds hotels, why he doesnt build hotels in northern nevada and this is a number of years ago and he said because of the fact when you fly into northern nevada whether its the airport or lake tahoe and the airport in reno the flight is so turbulent he doesnt believe anyone would come back after doing that one or two times. Travel has increased substantially and is not nearly as bad as it was 15 or 20 years ago and thats a good thing but here is my reasoning. Last year and ms. Greenberg maybe you can answer this. Last year there was an amendment to mr. Schumer on a bill and i dont recall what bill was. He was going to regulate and determined but the size of the seating should be in an airplane. Do you recall that . Yeah there have been several bills introduced to focus on the shrinking size of seats, the shrinking aisles in the shrinking baggage area and the shrinking bathrooms on air flights. Do you have a position on that . We think this move towards shrinking these areas, legroom is a dangerous trend. It makes it harder for passengers to get in and out. To create safety hazards and people have to be plain. Makes it much more difficult for citizens with disabilities to get in and out of an airplane so we do think there has to be some limits. The airlines dont seem to Pay Attention too much to the discomfort of consumers. We had American Airlines announcing that they are going to shrink yet again so if the Airlines Stop shrinking size we dont think there would be a need for such a bill but unfortunately we dont have a whole lot of control. What is more important, the room in an airplane with seats for your. That goes up and down in front of you . What is more important . When it comes to emergencies. Certainly the distance between seats i think is the thing that i would look at an also the size of the bathroom and the size of the aisles and the overhead luggage. I think its creating a very tense and frustrating situation for passengers. Mr. Kirby do support legislation that would determine the amount of legroom on an airplane . No sir and the reason is we want to offer our customers a choice. Its almost exactly the same to fly an airplane regardless of how many seats. Its a choice for the cause but if you want economy plus you have to pay more. Part of that is putting more seats on airplanes. Some of it wouldnt have that much effect on united but most of the bills were compliant with the minimum but for some airlines you could take 10 to 20 of the seats off of airplanes and the cost is almost exactly the same to fly the airplane. Economically would go up 10 to 20 in one of the rate things that happened for consumers and we talked about today is declining airfares. The bureau of statistics said yesterday real fears in chicago and ohare in the last 25 years are down 53 and thats possible because there are more people on airplanes. You have to pay more to get on an airplane. No sir. Are you more discomforted . Yes, sir. How about if you weigh under 200 pounds or more than 200 pounds . Are you more comfortable or less comfortable in one of your seats . I would imagine the larger you are the less comfortable the airlines say. American airlines and you brought this up this is out of cnn planning to decrease the front to back space between some of its economy seats by another 2 inches. American airlines isnt the only one heading in this direction. United airlines is considering a similar move and it goes on to say is the big airlines match each others the risk is 29 inches becomes the standard for flying economy in the United States. Is that going to become your standard . Sir i dont know for sure what her standard will be. The majority perceives her 31 311 inches or more. Some of the new seats have more personal space and pitch is probably not the right metric anymore because there is more personal space and some of the seats. But we will endeavor to keep things competitive both on what customers want and able to offer low fares to our customers that prefer low fares. I apologize comargo question. Are you saying it wont go down to 29 . Im not saying one way or the other. We havent made any final decisions. Senator cortes masto. Thank you all for this enlightening discussion today and i want to followup with my colleague from nevada and ask point lank, is united going to cut legroom are looking at doing back . Maam, we are making some changes to existing aircraft. None of the changes we have announced so far go down to 29 inches. E right at this ago down to 28 inches . No. See you are currently at 31 inches, correct . I believe we have some airplanes that are 30 inches but by and large we are 31 inches or more today. And right now you have no longterm plan to go down to 29 or 28 inches . I dont know yet. You think thats part of Customer Choice . Yes maam and 31 inches today on every airplane we have for seats that have more legroom typically up to 34 inches even in economy and large cabins to give customers that choice whether they want the lowest fare or whether they want more. Can i ask the seas with a larger legroom is that in the exit rows or where else would it be on the plain . Its typically at the front of the economy cabin. Not always but the seating configuration is dependent on where the exit rows are from a physical location perspective that the general rule they are at the front of economy and exit rows. Persons with disabilities have no choice but to take something in the front of the airplane because they cant normally get to the back of airplanes and they are paying more. No maam i believe those customers are allowed in the larger seats. Im not sure and i can get back to you but i believe they are allowed in the front. Were you base, chicago . And you have to get out there today, flying commercial . I was up the house hearing and i flew commercial. Do you traditionally fly commercial . Did you fly your own airlines . In this case i flew on one of the competing airlines because they came from arizona. Were you in when you fly your airlines are usually in economy firstclass . 70 firstclass and 70 economy. When you fly economy or in the back of the plain . I tend to be all overpaid at the 1yearold and a 3yearold so i go wherever we can find seats seats. Have a theory that if we required all executives to fly on the back of the plane the Consumer Experience would be much better and it is frustrating for me to hear that you are all about the consumer when every time i get on a commercial flight there theres nothing but complaints from consumers because there is not enough room. Theres not enough leg room. Theres enough choice even though you claim to have choice and thats the end fortune part of all of this and thats why you see the frustration that you have hear from all of us. Many of our consumers are constituents, there is a problem there and the other concern that i have is what is happening to the Flight Attendants and the crew because they are airing the brunt of frustration from consumers who are flying so my next question from you is you heard ms. Nelson talk about the concerns that are happening right now with the employees that are on the plane flying every single day from not enough standing to the fact that Airlines Stopped enforcing informing passengers and how they should handle themselves on the plane to also the gates and on the planes themselves to deescalate situations. What are you doing response in particular united doing in response to ms. Nelsons concerns . Thank you for the questions senator in thank you mr. Nelson for being here with us today. Our Flight Attendants are there primarily for safety. That is their primary role and supporting them and creating safety for everyone on that airplane and the customers is our top priority and their top priority. They are incredibly important to the product did i tell her people all the time the most important part of our product does not the meal, it is the Flight Attendants interacting with customers and they do remarkable things every day to take care of our customers and they have a difficult job. I have incredible empathy for ms. Nelson. We spend a lot of time engaged with the Flight Attendants union. When it thinks im proud of that united that is changed is the change recently since mr. Munoz became ceo is that we have a great relationship and partnership. We dont agree on everything but we respect each other and we spent a lot of time talking to them and on these issues. Some of them we dont always agree on but we always listen and we listen respect way to them and value and listen with an open mind and value their input and we will continue to do that. United airlines will be a stronger airline in the long term by having a partnership with not just Flight Attendants but all of our employee groups. Its one of the things we are proud of that we have turned the corner on in the last two years. My time is up and i said i want to keep going but i would like to hear if there is discussion in particular situations with mr. Doa did i understand united was contracting out with her public airlines. I would like to know when i havent heard today specifically how and what type of controls and oversight that united has over those contractors and what if anything you are doing now to take action against her public for what happened. Mr. Kirby you can take that question for the record. Ms. Capito. Thank you all for being here today. I was just trying to figure out what question i want to aslan made sure get the answer. Talking about the incident that happened in chicago and then the frustrations of a lot of people surrounding that. One of the issues that i think for me and this is directed to you mr. Kirby and many of us is honesty can be the best policy and im going back to the gate now. You are back at the gate and the flight is delayed and you can get no information. Why is it a laid . How long is it delayed and you know in a lot of cases they know. The gate agent knows and i could be making alternative plans. In my case it would be probably renting a car. What are your protocols at the gate to alleviate the frustration when you know you work it not getting a real answer . Thank you senator and i share that frustration. It is one of the things we need to improve. When i flew out here and my wife flew back phoenix on a day there were tornadoes in texas. She was on a fourhour delay with the porter opened a 3yearold. She was incredibly frustrated so its a problem and part of the problem is we dont have good information. I promise you are gate wants nothing more than to tell you whats going on when they have information. When they have information or they told us to give information i have seen a thunderstorm in dallas and i dont understand the Flight Attendant couldnt get here because they couldnt get a from york city. Yes maam i assure you are flooded gate attendant know. One of the things we are doing at united is creating a new app that all employees will have for each individual airplane where they can talk to each other. The problem is a lot of times theres a dispatcher back in chicago. I know whats going on but in the weather situation to dispatchers handling 20 or 30 flights and they havent told and they have a complicated process to communicate to the gate of the Flight Attendant and usually the Flight Attendant or private is calling and asking. We have to get a more direct medication. I would highly recommend that because i think they would pull the temperature down a little bit. I absolutely agree. We plan to roll that out this year. Good. Quickly on the check bag issue of those recently and we saw the bag to congressman markey has. Those things can get quite heavy and i worry about it from the safety aspect. Ms. Nelson u. While all helping in aiding passengers but there some passengers you cant get their bag of foia. Some passengers when they bring them down are there protocols around that in as an issue for you . Is a huge issue a passenger to passenger conflict as well and we have been working for many years to try to limit the amount of carryon baggage coming on board the flight. We were actually supportive of united space it a con mucus is going to limit the amount of baggage coming on the plane which is going to cut down on the injuries were Flight Attendants and passengers as well and make it a safer flight. So yes we have absolute concerns about this and we believe this is after something that could be taken on. We have tried to take it on the past having templates at tsa for the bag uses not get through and it doesnt meet a certain size standard. This is an issue that needs to be addressed for safety. Senator capito if the airline would stop charging 25 you would see that diminish substantially. I agree with that. I want to go back to what the first questioner before me asked because we dont have a mainline that comes into charleston. We do have one delta flight that most of it is regional or subcontractors. Are your protocols that united go all the way to other every sub hunter that you have flying out of united . On united ramp interview is whether customers flying united or one of our regional partners the united needs to hold them to the same standards. We have to hold them to the same standards as we do any airline. Thats good to know. Think thats really important in the last comment and i dont know. Time for an answer on that comic you have numerous times had plunging fears the 9 11 area that doesnt have a lot of service that has regionals if i want to fly to charleston West Virginia to d. C. And back which i do quite frequently at 600 for roundtrip flight. That i can fly probably if i hit it good i get could get to hawaii on that or even maybe to europe mainline to mainline. I fly a turboprop 17000 feet8. How can you justify, i dont understand the justification for such huge fares on such short hops on the less expensive aircraft and they are full . I hear your frustration but i think first of all the fares we talk about our average fares and not sincerely your location specific but fares are essentially supply and demand and if you are from a small town i think the fares are going to be more expensive. We do have good competition. We have four Large International carriers and seven smaller domestic carriers. There are no barriers to entry. Its just a matter of which carrier wants to take on that service and is there a Business Case for doing so . Thats essentially what it boils down to and we need to be realistic about that in this country about what type of Service Every Small Community can really afford to have. We want to grow servers and we are growing service. What i can say is the more we have regulate pricing and especially senator markeys idea about regulating pricing, we need to regulate pricing in this country. 1974 the flight from jfk to lax, 1480. Today its 320. Senator capito we think competition would do wonders for your situation and flying to West Virginia and we would see the Bigger Airlines trying to squelch competition and we want that to stop. Tonight thank you senator capito. Thank you mr. Chairman and i would also like to thank you Ranking Member for convening todays hearing. Mr. Kirby no one wants united to succeed more than i said i joined when i was in college so since 1986 id been a member but its clear to me that the mere fact that we are here today that flight 3411 was embarrassing and reprehensible and i wonder if you agree with that description of it. While United Airline in the Chicago Department of aviation are working out steps for policy that allowed this to happen i am really interested in how much more airlines can do to reaffirm the industrys commitment to Customer Service and complying with the contracts of carriage. Ms. Pinkerton i am interested in learning more about the reforms you highlight in your testimony. What you help compile a list of the reforms are individual Airline Members have taken to improve Customer Service and submit them for the record . Yes, well do that. There are more details in my written testimony but im happy to give you rater inventory. Thats wonderful, thank you. You have successfully advocated for delay in implementation of the mishandled baggage rule that would simply require large u. S. Airlines to report on how often they mishandled wheelchair so that air travelers with disabilities can compare carriers and make informed health decisions. Does the Airline Industry think this is in the consumers best interest . It before youre referring to is the fact that the department of transportation when the administration changed hit the pause button on all rulemaking and what they said as is they are creating Regulatory Reform task forces. Theres an executive order that requires rulemaking to essentially be cost beneficial so i dont think hitting the pause button on some of these rules was a decision on the rule but rather an opportunity to look at the process and make sure the is going to move forward and that they will pass. Does the general counsel of u. S. D. O. T. Asking january of 2019 saying and i quote industries are facing real challenges of regulation. I think we need more time to implement something that is imminently fair. I dont know if you were here earlier when i went through the list of things that we have been doing to work with the disabled community both on training, on increasing lap size and information that we put out to our crews and the discussions we are having with the pda. This is an area. An enormous amount of time on that i can tell in the last three years we have taken seriously and i think that we are making progress. For this particular flight is 80 in a flight on a Different Airline is this. The consumer should be able to choose. I dont think that is an unreasonable thing when that is already being done. Isnt it individuals with disabilities are people, too, and i have seen Wounded Warriors on flight being manhandled off a flight further exacerbating their conditions. Ive had to sit there and wait for my wheelchair to show up and it doesnt show up or it comes up in pieces. And as i said, iv ive said, in there most recently just within the last several where it came up broken. And this is multiple airlines. I think in a perfect world, congress should not have to act and we would treat them with respect and all people with disabilities ask for. I dont think you should be wantinthat you should bewantings process, not delay the amount of time. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you all for responding to questions and for the questions you will respond to. The record will remain open for two weeks during that time so they can to questions for the record. When you receive these you are requested to submit answers as soon as possible, which concludes the hearing. I think the witnesses and the hearing is closed. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]