Airlines take heat for business practices at tense hearing

Several of the nation’s major airlines agreed to shorten their lengthy customer service contracts at a heated House hearing on Tuesday.

Members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee grilled United Airlines, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines about their customer service policies during the first congressional hearing since a passenger was violently dragged off a United flight earlier this month.

Airlines were pressed on their so-called “contracts of carriage,” which customers agree to whenever they book a ticket. The contracts — posted on an air carrier’s website — detail their customer service, boarding and baggage policies, including under what conditions a passenger can be removed from a flight.

{mosads}The airline industry’s overbooking and bumping policies have come under intense fire since the controversial United incident, which sparked international outrage and calls for new consumer protections.

Lawmakers lamented Tuesday that passengers often don’t know what terms they are agreeing to when they buy airline tickets because the contracts are so lengthy and too complicated for the average person to comprehend.

United’s contract is 46 pages and over 37,000 words long, while Alaska’s is 67 pages and over 37,000 words long.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), ranking member on the panel, said one his staffers was able to get compensation for a delayed flight after printing out and sifting through dozens of pages of the airline’s contract of carriage.

“How many people have the patience to do that?” DeFazio said. “We need transparency and simple language in the contract of carriage.”

Alaska agreed to boil it down to one page, while Southwest said it would “absolutely” work to simplify its contract.

“Ours is too long,” said Joseph Sprague, senior vice president of external relations for Alaska.

American said work was already underway to make their contract simpler.

United also agreed to significantly streamline its contracts and make them more transparent, though it did not commit to squeezing all of its terms onto a single page.

“We’re going to hold you all accountable for that,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.)

Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), chairman of the Transportation panel, partly shifted blame for the lengthy contracts on all “the damn lawsuits.”

“Part of the problem is us,” he said. “Maybe some tort reform would allow the industry to simplify what they put in their contracts.”