Dale A. Kers

Airlines should be required to after a reasonable amount of time (1 hour of ground hold away from the gate) provide the option to passengers of returning to the gate or alternate gate-type arrangements and either cancel the flight or establish a new departure time and or gate for the flight. This allows people to get on with their lives and wait for the new flight in comfort or make alternate arrangements with the carrier or other carriers. The carriers should not be liable for any charges due to delays beyond their control, e.g. weather, air traffic control, but likewise they should not be permitted to charge any change fees, etc. and agreements between airlines to permit the interchanging of tickets be used to handle the rebookings without fee as they currently are for flights that are canceled due to late equipment, mechanical problems, etc. It is really about making prudent decisions sooner rather than later on the part of the airlines, as well as providing accurate and timely information to passengers on the aircraft and allowing the paying passengers to have some input to the flight's fate. I personally was on a flight where after waiting 2 plus hours on the taxiways, during which time the crew provided us with status information, we were within a few planes of taking off we were alerted to that fact that the planes lavatory was inoperative and that we had the choice of returning to the gate, where most likely the flight would be canceled, or continue on with the flight and deal with the inconvenience. We chose to press ahead, but at least we had some input to the process.