Lawmaker plans airline passenger bill of rights
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The stranding of hundreds of passengers aboard JetBlue Airways Corp. planes for up to 10 hours on Wednesday has revived calls to enact an airline customer rights law.
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(InfoWorld) - Critics ofÂ last week's agreementÂ allowing European passengers' personal data to be shared with U.S. authorities have just under a month to reshape the accord before it comes into force, said Stavros Lambrinidis, vice president of the European Parliament's civil liberties committee Monday. "There is aÂ battleÂ to make this agreement respectful of European citizens' civil liberties, and it's not over," he said in a telephone interview. The European Parliament has no direct say in the shaping of an agreement that will give U.S. customs, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other agencies including the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency free access to airlines' passenger databases to help them prevent potential terrorist attacks. However, some national parliaments will get the chance. "There are about six or seven countries that have to debate this agreement. There is still a chance to change it," Lambrinidis said. The U.S. government demanded access to information about everyone flying to the U.S. from the E.U. in the wake of the terrorist attacks in September 2001. However, by complying with the demand, airlines would have been breaching strict European data protection laws, so the U.S. and E.U. drafted an exemption clause from the laws, which they claim was respectful of European citizens' data. The European Court of JusticeÂ annulled that agreementÂ last year and gave the two sides until the end of this month to come up with an alternative. Failure to do so would leave European airlinesÂ exposed to massive finesÂ and the possible loss of landing slots in the U.S if they don't continue to hand over the data, or legal action on data protection grounds in the E.U. if they do. "It's clear that there has to be an agreement but not one like this," Lambrinidis said. The agreement that was reached during a phone call between German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, E.U. justice and home affairs commissioner Franco Frattini and U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security Michael Chertoff last Wednesday reduces the fields of data to be shared from 34 at present to 19. These fields include information such as name, credit-card details and travel itinerary. They won't include dietary requirements, which could be used to identify someone's religion. However, it extends the length of time the U.S. authorities can hold the data from three years to 15 years, and it allows U.S. agencies to dip into the databases at their will. In an interview last week, Europe's data protection supervisor, Peter Hustinx, said his main concern was that the E.U. would grant American agencies the right to pull up information about Europeans whenever they want. He called for a push mechanism, meaning that database managers for the airlines would have to pass over the data, instead. Like the temporary accord it replaces, the new agreement promises an eventual switch to a push mechanism. Under the new agreement, U.S. agencies can pull up the data they want until early next year, when airlines will start pushing it instead. However, the DHS maintains the right to pull the information if airlines don't offer up the data promptly. The main concern, however, is that the agreement omits any binding undertakings for U.S. authorities to safeguard European citizens' data. The details of this arrangement aren't in the agreement itself but in an exchange of letters that haven't been made public, Lambrinidis said. Reacting to the agreement last week, Hustinx said he fears the measure could violate European citizens' rights to privacy. In addition to allowing U.S. authorities to keep the data for 15 years, there would be "no limitation to what U.S. authorities are allowed to do with the data," Hustinx wrote in a letter to Schaeuble on Wednesday after the German minister clinched the deal.
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Montana Sen. Conrad Burns, a Republican in a tight re-election race, flew on a private plane chartered by Vonage Holdings Corp., just days after he pushed legislation that the company has advocated for more than a year.
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The Senate voted Tuesday to give 45,000 airport screeners the same union rights as other public safety officers, despite vigorous opposition by Republicans and a veto threat from the White House.
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WASHINGTON -- Even though the move was expected, civil libertarians are protesting a directive by the government ordering airlines to turn over personal information on their customers that can include credit card numbers and addresses and even indicate a
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The head of the Federal Aviation Administration said today that the agency would propose allowing airline pilots to fly until they are 65 years old.
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The U.S. Senate on Wednesday backed  a Democratic-sponsored measure that would give new labor  protections to airport screeners while seeking to address White  House concerns that federal authorities have flexibility to  respond to security threats.
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It's almost a replay from five years ago. The Senate plans to vote today on whether to extend union rights to federal airport screeners, a fundamental question that confronted Congress when it created the Transportation Security Administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Following a contentious debate at the time, Congress left union rights to the discretion of the Bush administration, which decided collective bargaining was inappropriate for TSA workers because of national security considerations. Last month, Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), brought the issue back, a sign of how the 2006 election has changed congressional priorities. ...
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WASHINGTON - The Transportation Security Administration announced on Tuesday that it will order domestic airlines to turn over personal information about passengers to test a system that will compare their names to those on terrorist watch lists.    The system, called Secure Flight, replaces a previous plan that would have checked passenger names against commercial databases and assigned a risk level to each...
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NEW YORK -- JetBlue Airways rolled out a customer bill of rights Tuesday that promises vouchers to fliers who experience delays in a move it hopes will win back passengers after an operational meltdown damaged its brand and stock price.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee heard this morning from one of its own about some of the problems with airline "no fly" watch lists. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., says he had a close encounter with the lists when trying to take the U.S. Airways shuttle out of Washington to Boston. The ticket agent wouldn't let him on the plane. His name was on the list in error.
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Unions look set to back industrial action at BAA airports, but consider festive amnesty
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Congress wants to protect fliers from getting stranded on the tarmac, but industry experts say that could make things worse
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Legislation that would end a long-running Texas turf war between airline powerhouses -- AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and Southwest Airlines -- was approved by the U.S. Congress on Friday and sent to President George W. Bush to be signed into law.
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A Republican senator pleaded guilty earlier this month to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge stemming from his arrest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, according to state criminal records.
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The pilots will vote on US Airway's demand for $300 million in wage and benefit concessions, their union said Tuesday night.
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A Mississippi congressman is calling for an investigation of security at the Jackson airport because of newspaper reports of lapses and thwarted inspections.