Airline Passenger Experience the subcommittee heard from representatives from the Government Accountability office, Consumer Reports, paralyzed veterans of america, the airline Passenger Experience association and Spirit Airlines. The subcommittee will come to order. I would ask unanimous consent ththe chair bethe chair be autho declare recess during todays hearing without objection, so ordered. I also ask nms can send members not on the subcommittee be permitted to sit with subcommittee at todays hearing and ask questions without objection, so ordered. Good morning and i want to thank the witnesses for joining the subcommittee today for the discussion on the air travel experience. According to the u. S. The bureau of transportation statistics in 2018 u. S. Airlines. 925 million passengers to destinations in the u. S. And abroad, the highest total is 2003. The federal aviation or the faa current forecast predicts it will increase roughly 2 per year over the next 20 years and the number of passenger is expected to grow from 24 million to 56 million by 2050. So while increased passenger demand for its new Economic Opportunities and enhances the nations aviation network, longstanding challenges can enter. Over the last few years coming u. S. Airlines invested i interen their products including it solutions such as smartphone apps to be stressed the travel experience. Todays hearing is an opportunity to examine the u. S. Airline Passenger Experience in here from stakeholders on ways to improve this experience and consider how congress and the Airline Industry can foster innovation. Todays witnesses were present stakeholders with unique insight on the Passenger Experience and the Government Accountability office to airlines to consumer advocates. While we will discuss numerous aspects of the everyday experience on u. S. Airlines there are few at the top of my mind today. First is accessibility issues. According to the last census but estimates they have a disability and more than half have mobility issues. Last november the subCommittee Held a roundtable to better understand this including challenges with boarding aircraft, laboratory appropriate techniques and damaged wheelchairs and mobility aid. As the 2016 and 2018 reauthorization act the department of transportation initiated several rulemaking strength of the accessibility of the laboratories and regulations for emotional support and Service Animals and joining on behalf of the paralyzed veterans of america mr. Paige, thank you and i look forward to hearing more about these roles and how congress can work with industry and stakeholders to fill in the gaps on airplanes and airport accessibility discrimination. Throughout the countrys history discrimination has been a pervasive and persistent issue. Far too often by rove that he does report anecdotes uncover unlawful practices across the transportation sector on the basis of race, color, origin, religion anreligion,religion and according to the gao passenger discrimination went from an average of 83 over the past decade to 96 complaints in 2019 and most were related to Racial Discrimination. Sadly the startling statistic doesnt reflect the numerous other cases the dod is reporting that hasnt captured. One of the priorities i have iss to break down the barriers to participate in the economy and society. The 2018 reauthorization act directed the gao to assist the tom nondiscrimination and contractors. Mr. Andrew von ah works on this study and mr. Klein i look forward to hearing the efforts on this nondiscrimination. I want to touch on the future of the airline Passenger Experience as well. At the 116 congress there was an agenda that prioritizes enhancing experience for passengers. To do so congress, the dot and industry must work to ensure transparency can prevent unfair practices and promote Reliable Care services for all americans. The last reauthorization act included numerous provisions to enhance the experience of passengers including establishing seats in the commercial aircraft and establishing consumer advocates to help resolve trouble complains and requiring carriers to disclose trans currency accommodations they provide in a widespread among other things so i look forward to hearing todays testimony of how this will improve the experience from the airline Passenger Experience association on the voluntary efforts for the equipment and general practices to better serve consumers. On the Consumer Protections in nearly three years to explore the important issues facing air travelers today. The past several years the federal government and carriers have made progress in improving the experience and we should recognize that. We should recognize there is more work ahead is so my thanks again to todays witnesses and i look forward to identifying ways congress can ensure all passengers of the safe, comfortable experience. With that i understand sitting Ranking Member of the subcommittee doesnt have a statement so i will turn to the trip. Fullstop they representative defazio of oregon. Before we get to the subject matter at hand i just want to address briefly the covid19 and air travel. Five years ago the gao recommended in response to the 2014 Ebola Outbreak but the dot would work with relevant agencies and stakeholders to develop a National AviationPreparedness Plan for Communicable Disease outbreaks. That has not happened through two administrations it hasnt happened and now it is a little late. They try to deal directly with airlines to give passenger information and there is an ongoing conflict over that, so last week the chair and i wrote the secretary asked that she implement the recommendations and put together a task force and become more involved in these issues as the cdc should deal with individual airlines and the policy should be developed from knowledgeable people that the faa or the dot so we can begin to better track passengers. Thats obviously not the subject of the hearing today. The state of air travel, you know, my first term in congress i introduced a bill called the equity act into some of the things that were in nashville and had been enacted and are still out there. Kudos to get in touch with the dot. I didnt do that for a while i havent often a mandate in one or another of the bills that they had to post something with an 800 number of the Airline Ticket counter and today how does anybody know to contact the dot with a complaint . We need more transparency so we get a better handle on how many there really are. A big part of the profitability is the ancillary fees. We have walls. I study economics, graduate school and undergraduate, the law of supply and demand. The airlines somehow when it comes to ancillary fees by sky is the limit. Whether it is a passenger looking at the faa bill in 18 within a month they raise the back fees by 5 might have raised fares again, 5. Either the planet is going to drop off drastically but they say if an airport to enhance the experience the terminals and the lack of brigades. If that went up by one or two or 5 no one would ever fly again. It would be totally the truth is if they make the case to the airline, somebodys got to pay for this and they tend to be airport to do aairports do an eb this last year. We have to do the projects. Here is a project. If we could increase the facility charge and they show you cu that the interest cost in half who is going to pay that interest. Why not raise money in the most efficient way possible and make the improvements we need to system . Weve been stuck on that for quite some time. We had a hearing last fall. One mishandled mobility or one dropped passenger is a tragedy. Repairing, replacing critical essential on a timely basis i think many of you have seen the photograph taped to the the aisle chair. This is unacceptable. To specify the training procedures they are out there replacing and handling and i have yet to see the results of the. Maybe we will hear a little bit about that today and emotional support animals. I am pleased to see the dot is taking some action. They shouldnt be penalized because other people are abusing the system and then finally the serious thing they are conducting some inadequate testing. Dealing with seat spacing and issues like that before i get to congress we had the manchester crash and people are piled up trying to get out of that plane. They died in a survivable crash. It took another six years to get that seat removed because the airlines didnt want to lose the revenue. They came back with a study that said it takes longer if you take out a row of seats. We have to deal with the behavior of people in the chicago crash where it took well over two and a half minutes. Fighting with the Flight Attendants are taking the luggage we have to figure out how to deal with the problem and the dot has to evaluate whether we can meet the standards. We will now turn to the witnesses. We wanted to leave to finish with this testimony and then go to the Ranking Member. The senior associate director for the paralyzed veterans of america and the Passenger Experience association and mr. Matt klein executive Vice President and chief commercial officer of Spirit Airlines is accompanied by the senior Vice President general counsel and i understand mr. Klein will be giving the Opening Statement and they were present for possible questions as well. Thank you all for being today. Since that is the case of written testimony has been a part of the record you limit your testimony to five minutes. With that we will proceed with the gao. You are recognized for five minutes. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the recent body of work on the airline Consumer Protections. My remarks are based on the reports issued over the past three years on a variety of Airline Consumer issues and what is known about the passenger complaints and airline practices on accessibility discrimination issues. Our work found the quality of airlines Operational Performance is generally improved over the past decade and they denie denied boardingsd mishandled baggage dropped precipitously to remain steady with modest improvements. The airlines have reduced involuntary by investing in technology to increase the compensation to the volunteers to give up their seats when needed and reducing or eliminating overbooking altogether. The baggage tracking technology at the institute tracking flights at risk of being chronically delayed, improving relationships with text messaging updates and voluntary compensating passengers to be in extended flight delays. Nonetheless it can be costly and convenient for airlines and passengers. They are required to compensate those that are denied boarding and provide refunds for canceled flights. Beyond those requirements the officials told us airlines are not obligated though they may choose to provide accommodations for the flight disruptions address cancellations and delays. In our work looking at the impact showed variation in data provided into the circumstances they will be provided. This can lead to confusion and frustration will you hold the microphone a little closer may feel they havent been fully compensated. While operational improvements have been a positive the complaints felt a bit of a different story related to the passenger boarding by 10 , flight problems and back issues are consistently the top categories of complaints and those related to accessibility discrimination through fewer complaints to the airlines have steadily increased this decade from about 19,000 to about 30,000 theres been an uptick of discrimination related complaints to the dot in the last few years. The experience of passengers for example of the recent work examining the accessibility of the aircraft laboratories without complaint data is inherently limited because of the substantial portion of the individuals never complained and are therefore not represented in the data. Though they had been reticent to provide the details to us with respect to the training in particular we found that Airline Training. And our work found it to be on such training. Looking forward to the reauthorization bill contained a number of provisions for dot with respect to the Consumer Protections including provisions to develop Airline Training and to establish an Airline Passenger with disabilities these efforts are ongoing. The dot is recently taking initial steps to establish rules related to the accessibility aircraft laboratories and regulating Service Animals we have recommendations to the dot to improve its ability to target the measure of the Consumer Protection compliance activiti activities. Chairman larsen, Ranking Member, this concludes my statement and i would be happy to address any questions you may have. Thank you. Three years ago i appeared before the committee is the infamous doctor tao incident which a plane passenger was literally dragged off the United Airlines flight. We heard from us is that today y the conditions havent improved much since then. The mergers since 2001 left just three Major NetworkAirlines American delta and united plus major lowcost. Resulting in worse service thats what has come to pass in many markets. The cabins are fully packed straining the system to capacity the revenue reached 75. 6 billion worldwide last year advocating any passengers and the question was never addressed. They determine who will be permitted to board and who will not or worse, dragged off. This is an industry in transparency. Consider searching through multitudes of the flights can be mindnumbing due to extraordinarily complex pricing. This is especially hard because most travelers fly less than once a year. Year. Airlines dont think it easy to comparison shop. They can be even more opaque and sometimes inspire changing flights or even carrying on a bag. Its common to block out leaving fewer available for the collection and scaring customers into paying more. In the basic economy is designed to attract shoppers and pressure them by up selling. When i flight is delayed, who will be revoked and who will not, who will get a room and sleep on the floor. If you are not in the premium class, watch out. Even safety itself is opaque. Theres no transparencthere is e critical maintenance of the outsourced to el salvador brazil and china and far less oversight. The contracts provide a few rights and guarantees that why y we still advocate for the comprehensive bill of rights which guarantee the accommodations during the flight delays and cancellations, transparency and safe healthy aircraft seating. Because the deregulation act plays a particularly a central role the limited Public Benefit and the rule makings while new w rule makings of dwindled. For two years the Consumer ProtectionCommittee Held no meetings. Then they appointed someone from the American Enterprise institute with no history of consumer advocacy as the consumer representative. Enforcement authority is falling short as the dot issues record low fines. Last year they find american roughly 77,000 for tarmac deeply instilled to roughly 68,000 corporations that generate 44 billion each in revenues in 2018 that is in 2016 congress led by this committee e predicted the gop to review and establish a policy to ensure families with kids 13 and under sit together without paying extra fees. For years dot was virtually silensilent so we vital filed af information act request and they forwarded 13 136 complaints abot stating publicly was unnecessary to act based on the low number. We analyzed the complaints and were horrified to find cases of children as young as one, two and three assigned seats away from family. Other children were autistic, suffered seizures or a lifethreatening allergy. Such guaranteed chaos during emergency evacuations and put children at risk for inflight Sexual Assault which the fbi says is rising. We created an online portal and forwarded over six complaints more than four times the original total. They should fulfill the committee mandate and they are urging Major Airlines to fix this themselves joined by more than 125,000 individuals who signed the petition. We also support the flight to get their act. Other issues that havent been effectively addressed include the troubling oversight sourcing to the repair stations echoing its field oversight of the 737 thats why we support the standards act. The emergency testing failed to account for the seismic changes and tighter seats, both passengers, carryon baggage destructing electronics, oversight, and the children seated apart from families. A 67yearold loophole that requires children to be properly restrained on commercial flights. Recent media reports highlight you need to wrap up. Dates with the interest of airlines of the public. Congress should enact protections to provide safety oversighoversight and we applaue subcommittee for its continuing efforts. Id be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much. I now want to