The hearing will come to order. It isored to impossible to ignore the public outcry with incidents that have involved passengers, as recently as yesterday. One of the most widely reported was that chicago would united flight 3411. And lots of lessons to be learned and im sure well hear what those lessons learned, both with the airport and the airline and the industry, are today. In looking at what happened, i, along with and senator nelson, really sent an immediate letter, and that said the last thing paying Airline Customer should expect is to be physically taken off an airline. The purpose of the hearing is to follow up on the letters we sent , the responses we got, and to find out what went wrong and how to make sure this doesnt happen in the future. This is a year when faa reauthorization needs to occur between now and september 30. And part of this hearing is to determine whats going to be taken care of without the congress and what needs to be taken care of in the federal law itself. Im going to turn to senator cantwell for her opening comments and we will become to all of you. Cantwell i went to submit 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. Thank you. And thank you, chairman blunt for convening this hearing and thanks to the witnesses for being here to discuss the important topics that are being raised today. All of us were deeply disturbed by the images of dr. Dao being dragged from a plane last month in chicago. For a passenger who presented no threat to safety or security of a flight to be treated that way is completely unnecessary and unacceptable. United has acknowledged as much. The united incident in chicago has not been the only Airline Incident to gain National Attention recently and we need to look at the policies and procedures across the entire industry to help address and improve the experience for the flying public. You need to ask yourselves as providers are you prioritizing those shareholder profits over the basic needs of consumers . The Airline Industry as a whole needs to explore sensible ways to fix the traveling experience for our passengers. As our commercial air system continues to grow, airports are more congested, travellers have fewer options, the flying public understands because they see it every time when they fly. The seats are fuller, and becoming smaller by the way. Tempers are flaring and if you run into trouble, if your flight is canceled, or you miss the connection, you are out of luck. Airplanes are flying full and seats arent available to accommodate displaced passengers and capacity in many cases is rising slowly, if at all, as a competition has disappeared. Even as those 83 of seats are being filled. In the state of washington, our airport has been one of the Fastest Growing airports and passengers have been feeling the squeeze. Weve had hearings about how were addressing that from a tsa and Homeland Security perspective. As a result, the industrys growth is too many airports are security,g lines of crowded terminals and gateways, so 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. We need to find improvements at our airports that will allow for room and competition. I believe that we need to make sure our airports have access to our customers. I do appreciate the steps that united and their partners in the Many Industries are taking to improve passenger experience. As airlines have brought in record profits, they have made some investments back into their product. But the fact were here today to hear about is that across the industry, we need to continue to make more steps towards that passenger experience. I know that when my former colleague was here, senator boxer, we talked about those elements of a passenger bill of rights. Just making sure when passengers were delayed on runways or held on flights with an extraordinary amount of time, that they got basic needs taken care of like access to water or food and making sure they had clear understanding. I think it may be time for a new passenger bill of rights to make sure that were 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. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for having this hearing. Senatorrman thank you, cantwell, and senator nelson is here. Would you like to make a few comments before we start . Nelson thank you, mr. Chairman. I would. Because of the gravity of this situation, what happened to dr. Dao is simply uncontionable. Im sorry you were sent here, it here as the president. You were sent here as the sacrificial lamb. It ought to be your ceo who i know personally who is a wonderful person and who has overcome great personal, medical challenges and was beginning to get such a good reputation. Anybody who has served in the military understands 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. I understand youve made several changes following the incident and we all appreciate those efforts. But this is a subtext and a foretelling of larger issues. Because the Airline Industry in this country has become anticompetitive and consumers. Re being hurt in the process talk to most any passenger and they feel like they are being treated as selfloading cargo rather than the way they should be. As selfvery valued customers. They feel taken advantage of. And theyre getting sick and tired of it. You talk to anybody that travels, and what im worrying about is this a consequence of all the mergers so we only have a handful of airlines and they basically dont have the competition . Many of the passengers now have become selfdescribed detectives by using their cell phone to record incidents where their fellow passengers are being unfairly or unjustly treated. I take no pleasure in beating up on the airlines, in this case its warranted and its a good thing were having this hearing. Because of what it portends for the future. All of us is experienced firsthand or heard from folks back home about incidents. The explosion of thieves such as checked baggage, priorities boarding, assigned seating that are not always clear. We try to straighten out some of this in last years faa bill. Were going to get another crack at it this year. And the i. T. Systems of airlines are failing and causing prolonged confusion and delays. And passengers with disabilities and thats why i am glad you put in the disabled veterans letter, they are having to deal with poorly Trained Personnel or the wheelchairs are mishandled and damaged. And add to the insult to injury, just yesterday, we learned that American Airlines and i wish we had the ceo of american here, we learned that American Airlines is getting ready to buy 100 new boeing 737 jets. They call them max jets and theyre going to cram another 10 so in an article which ill enter into the record, mr. Chairman, with your permission. Mr. Chairman without objection. Senator nelson American Airlines is cutting more leg room, economy class. They say that in ordering these boeing 737 max jet liners that theyll shrink the distance between seats, which is known as pitch, from 31 to 29 inches and in this article, it points out as right now, delta american and delta, american and and southwest are 31 inches. United is 30. Spirit is 28. And american, by these new jets, 10 more seats cramped in. I wonder how you handle, ms. Nelson, that Flight Attendants having to deal with more in, 29omers cramped inches. It will only be rivalled by spirit at 28. And virgin has 32 inches and jetblue has 34 inches. But jetblue and virgin arent 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 wouldnt be sitting here today if the traveling public believes that the airlines cared more about them than theyre caring about the do re me. This is happening and you all need to face it. 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 whats happened since . Fees 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 years faa bill. Some of them we got in, but compounding all of this is the fact that many consumers dont have a lot of choices if theyre fed up with the service at their local airport. So where is the competition . And so according to one recent study of the u. S. Travel association, the big currently controls over 50 of four the seat capacity on flights out of 155 airports. That doesnt sound real competitive to me. 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 being saved and redemption, and i truly hope the airlines are sincere and their corrective actions match their words. When i see more passengers being 10 crammed in to 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 as the Ranking Member of the full 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 were prepared to do so again when we begin later this year on the faa authorization bill. Thank you, mr. Chairman for this opportunity. Mr. Chairman thank you, senator nelson. We have with us ginger evans, the commissioner of the Chicago Department of aviation, scott kirby, the president of United Airlines, sharon pinkerton, Senior Vice President , legislative and Regulatory Affairs for airlines of america, sara nelson, the International President of the association of Flight Attendants and sally greenberg, the executive director of the National Consumer league. So we are pleased that youre here. We look forward to your testimony. We have your testimony, but would love to have you handle your five minutes however you want. We will run that clock pretty tight. In no more than 25 minutes, we are to questions. And commissioner evans, well let you start. Commissioner evans good morning. Blunt andchairman members of the committee for asking me to testify on the important issue of safety in the airports. Events that the took place on april 9, 2017, were unacceptable. On behalf of the chicago airport of aviation, we would like to and his family our sincerest apology. As someone who spent more than three decades in the aviation industry, that a passenger of one of our airplanes was deeply saddening and personally offensive to me. This is not how we do business and these actions will not be tolerated. As the commissioner of overseeing ohare and the Midway International airport, the safety of the public remains our highest priority. It is imperative that we interact with passengers in a manner that not only protects their safety but conveys dignity and respect. We have Strong Security plans in place coordinated with our partners in the federal government. These establish roles and responsibilities from multi layered Security Response system to prevent riches of security, while ensuring continued confiscation of weapons, and general security for persons working in and traveling through our airports. These plans help ensure that more than 100 million passengers safely travel through Ohare International airport and Midway International airport every year. We continue to adapt our state and security policies, procedures and practices 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. Dao and his family the respect we demand be given to all the traveling public flying in and out of chicago. These actions are not condoned by the Chicago Department of aviation. We initiated an immediate administrative review. Based on that review, four personnel were put on leave and the interviews and findings of our review were given to the city of chicagos inspector general. The details during the response to the request for officers are now the subject of an expedited disciplinary investigation by the inspector general. Our immediate review showed that the actions of these officers were not in accordance with the Chicago Department of aviations directives. Our policy is clear that force should only be used when absolutely necessary to protect the security and safety of our 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 of our Security Resources and policies to identify changes that might clarify and strengthen security roles and procedures. While we cannot reverse took place, as a department we are taking action to ensure 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 they 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 our two airports. Effective april 10, Chicago Department of aviation airport Security Officers will no longer board aircraft unless theres an immediate medical issue or imminent physical threat on board with great bodily harm at risk. The Chicago Police department will continue to take the lead in responding to disturbances on aircraft which they have done very ably. While the main duty of airport Security Officers will continue to be to enforce federal regulations governing airport safety and security and restricted areas of the airport, while officers are trained on primitive control and Craft Movement areas, they are not designated Law Enforcement authority at our airports. Third, we are in the final stage of obtaining an International Aviation security expert to partner with us to conduct a comprehensive review of our Security Program to ensure that we are not only meeting current best practices but also thinking forward and positioning ourselves to respond to the ever changing 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 our most Important Mission of safely supporting each and every passenger that moves through our airports. We are also initiating a very comprehensive plan with our Airline Partners to modernize and improve chicago ohare for the purpose of serving our customers more comfortably. In closing, id like to state to say we are deeply sorry for the events that took place on april 9. We are redoubling our efforts to strengthen our Security Systems policies, procedures and Training Program to ensure they Work Together to keep all of our passengers safe. Mr. Kirby chairman blunt, senators, thank you for the opportunity to address the subcommittee on this important matter today. My name is scott kirby and im the president of United Airlines, here today representing our 87,000 employees. On april 9, our airlines broke the Publics Trust in an incident that should have never happened. I apologize again to dr. Dao, his family, to every passenger on flight 3411 and to all our customers and employees around the world, and im very sorry for our companys inadequate response to the initial incident. No customer should have ever been treated the way that dr. 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 a report, which identified four key failures. First, we called on Law Enforcement when a safety or security situation did not exist. Second, we booked crew at the very last minute, even though flight 3411 was full. Third, we failed to provide our employees with the authority to offer enough compensation or alternative travel options to given incentive to a passenger to give up a seat. Fourth and perhaps most importantly, our employees did not have the aut