Airline laws are not unfamiliar to New York, however. After JetBlue "stranded thousands of passengers on parked planes for up to 10 hours during an ice storm," Gov. Eliot Spitzer signed passengers' rights bills into law.
But airlines, who have attempted to block the bill, believe the state's airline participation is unconstitutional. Airline services are federal matters. Specifically, they say, the bill would violate the 1978 federal Airline Deregulation Act drafted "to ensure that the states would not undo federal deregulation with regulation of their own."
Gianaris, however, disagrees. "[The airlines] will sit there with a straight face and argue against a law that simply says that someone stuck on a plane for more than three hours is entitled to a drink of water and the use of a bathroom," he said.
When passed, the bill will require airlines to provide "fresh air and lights, waste remove services, and adequate food and drinking water" to passengers left on a tarmac for three hours or more in New York, as well as post "complaint information" that passengers can use to contact officials.
And any airline that fails to do this could be fined up to $1,000 per passenger.
"We kept it extremely limited to what we were comfortable that we were allowed to do: require them to give people a drink and clean the bathrooms," said Gianaris about the bill. "That's within a state's rights because it's a matter of public health."
