Vermont Travel Notes

"ZIPPO. ZILCH. NADA. "

That is the extent of your rights when you step onto an airplane (or "INto" an airplane as George Carlin liked to point out) according to Marc Britton. He should know - he's an attorney who was once General Counsel at Expedia and now runs his own legal advice website called Avvo.

He recently wrote a succinct article on this topic at the Journey etc. website

Airlines cannot discriminate against you by selling your seat to someone better looking or more pleasant. Nor can they punch you if you get on their nerves. But beyond that, the sky is the limit, as pilots like to say.

And who gives them the right to treat you like cattle? You do. When you buy a ticket, you agree to abide by their terms in the Carriage Agreement that they print on their tickets in microscopically small and very light type.

However, they are not heartless bastards. Bastards, yes. But not heartless. Maybe we should qualify that with the word "usually" not heartless. They are a slow, inconsistent, ungainly, and profitless bureaucracy. They are frightening to deal with but you don't have a choice if you need to get somewhere far within a reasonable period of time. And, like a strikingly similar bureaucracy, you do have a vote but the choices are not great and probably don't make a difference in the long run.

I wrote an article last Nov 24 about Rule 240 that gives you a little bit of a fighting chance sometimes. You can learn more about the Rule at the Peter Greenberg travel website..


Air Sickness Bag (and humor) from European flight operator Hapag-Lloyd Express

(c) 2008 except the photo Jeff Connor