By Matthew Bisanz

The winter storm two weeks ago caused problems other than the ice rink that was the main parking lot.

At John F. Kennedy International Airport, customers were left on airplanes for up to 11 hours due to scheduling and weather problems. In exchange for their 11 hour wait, the customers were offered free flight vouchers.

Yes, that’s right. In exchange for spending more time waiting on the tarmac than it would’ve taken them to reach their destination and after not being flown to their destination they were given coupons to fly on future flights from the same airline.

I’m not sure that there is another industry that could get away with such an atrocious customer service policy. If your doctor told you he’d be removing an imminent life-threatening tumor and then couldn’t because of a scheduling problem with the operating room, I don’t think his promise of a future surgery on the house would be well received. Or even here at Hofstra, if a professor didn’t show up for class for a semester, would the promise of a free class next semester matter much?

For years now the airline industry has fought the American consumers over the establishment of a Passengers’ Bill of Rights. They’ve claimed that if they had to fulfill their promises to their customers, they’d go bankrupt.

What industry could come out and say that its long-term plan is not to consistently fulfill its promises to its customers? Maybe an industry that has such high entry barriers and so few alternatives that it can abuse its customers without fear? Airlines need to realize that their primary purpose is to deliver customers from point A to point B at given times. If their purpose instead was to sometimes get most of their passengers from point A to point B only if the weather is perfect and no human error occurs, that would be a much different purpose.

Some things airlines have no control over, the weather, airport security, and passenger mistakes are prime examples. However, other things airlines have plenty of control over: over-booking routes, over-loading airport schedules, and over-taxing staff are some things they do control.

If an airline like JetBlue knows its planes fly out from an airport like JFK that receives significant storms from time to time, it should have the staff available to adjust flights to account for weather changes. Even assuming the storm had not happened, airlines still over-schedule airports like Chicago O’Hare Airport and LaGuardia Airport with the knowledge that once its customers arrive, they will put up with multi-hour delays.

While airlines say they’re trying hard and have even agreed to abide by a code of conduct, they freely admit that they may break that code from time to time, even though they can plan to avert problems. Only a legally enforceable Bill of Rights will compel airlines to deliver on their promises to passengers.