Court rejects air-travel law
N.Y. had required that amenities be offered to passengers on planes stuck on runways.
NEW YORK - A federal appeals court yesterday struck down the first law in the nation requiring airlines to provide food, water, clean toilets and fresh air to passengers trapped in a plane delayed on the ground.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said New York's law interfered with federal law governing the price, route or service of an air carrier.
The law was challenged by the Air Transport Association of America, the trade group representing leading U.S. airlines.
"If New York's view regarding the scope of its regulatory authority carried the day, another state could be free to enact a law prohibiting the service of soda on flights departing from its airports, while another could require allergen-free food options on its outbound flights, unraveling the centralized federal framework for air travel," the court wrote.
It said that although the goals of the New York law were "laudable" and the circumstances prompting its adoption "deplorable," only the federal government had the authority to impose such regulations.
The law was passed after thousands of passengers were stranded aboard planes for up to 10 hours on several JetBlue Airways Corp. flights at Kennedy International Airport on Valentine's Day 2007. The passengers complained that they were deprived of food and water and that toilets overflowed. A month later, hundreds of more passengers on other airlines were stranded aboard planes at JFK after a daylong ice storm.
State Assemblyman Michael Gianaris, the Democrat from Astoria who was the prime sponsor of the New York Airline Passenger Bill of Rights, called yesterday's ruling the "latest in a long line of federal court decisions protecting the already powerful corporations in this country to the detriment of the average public."
"By no means is this issue over," he said. The options for proponents of the law include an appeal, new legislation, and an effort to pressure the federal government to create similar rules for long-delayed flights.
State Sen. Charles Fuschillo, a Long Island Republican who sponsored the New York legislation, said he was "stunned by the audacity of the airline industry, which fought so hard to deny the flying public simple basic rights, like being able to use a restroom or get a drink of water while stranded on a delayed plane."
In a statement, the Air Transport Association said the ruling had vindicated its positions that airline services were regulated by the federal government and that "a patchwork of laws" by states and local authorities would be impractical and would not benefit customers.
"This clear and decisive ruling sends a strong message to other states that are considering similar legislation," the association said.
A recent federal report showed that about 24 percent of flights nationally arrived late in the first 10 months of last year, the industry's second-worst performance record since comparable data began being collected in 1995.
Kennedy had the third-worst on-time arrival record of any major U.S. airport through October, behind the New York area's two other major airports, LaGuardia and Newark, according to the report.
During appellate arguments earlier this month, Seth Waxman, a lawyer for the trade group, said Congress and a dozen other states were considering laws similar to New York's.