"Readers are invited to join me in pax activism."-Fairechild

FAIRECHILD'S PASSENGER BILL OF RIGHTS
By Diana Fairechild
May 30, 2003

ARTICLE 1. POISON PROTECTION
Spraying pesticide on airline passengers and throughout aircraft cabins must be stopped. If pesticide is used inside a plane, then the airline must be required to disclose every time that pesticide is applied. Along with this, the brand name of the pesticide and its symptoms of poisoning in humans (both mild and acute) must be made easily available to passengers.

ARTICLE 2. FRESH AIR
Passengers must be provided the same quality air (percentage of oxygen) that pilots get; for more than two decades pilots have been getting more than ten times the amount of fresh air. Oxygen bottles must be readily available on every flight to anyone suffering from hypoxia.

ARTICLE 3. DRINKING WATER
Potable drinking water must be provided on all commercial aircraft -- at the very least, 8 ounces per hour per person. It is essential that crew and passengers consume adequate good-quality drinking water in order to prevent the many serious side effects of dehydration, such as deep vein thrombosis, fatigue, and brain fog.

ARTICLE 4. SMOOTH TURBULENCE
The airlines and their partners in government need to use high-tech measures to forecast whatever atmospheric conditions can toss about a jet in mid air. Technology to eliminate or at least vastly reduce clear air turbulence must now be made available to airlines. While we wait for the implementation of this technology, airlines should drop the euphemisms in emergency briefings and offer passengers solid information on how to protect themselves from turbulence-related injuries.

ARTICLE 5. REDUCE DISEASES
Cabin air contamination from contagious diseases must be treated as an airworthiness issue. If clean air is not delivered, then planes must be grounded. High efficiency air filters must be installed on all aircraft and checked before every flight. People with known airborne diseases should not be permitted to fly without a doctor's assurance that their illness is out of its contagious phase. The airlines must not be permitted to impose penalty charges on passengers who act responsibly when they change their reservations due to contagious diseases.

ARTICLE 6. REDUCE TOXINS
Air contamination by toxins must be treated as an airworthiness issue. If there is any suspicion of toxins in an airplane cabin, passengers and crew must be offered blood tests. Toxins can cause cancer, genetic mutations, and death. Sources of toxins in airplane cabins include, but are not limited to, hydraulic fluid leaks, engine oil leaks, jet fuel exhaust, and cabin furnishings.

ARTICLE 7. AGING AIRCRAFT
The FAA must be restrained from issuing waivers of safety rules for aging aircraft. All past requests for exemptions must be made public. The age of every commercial airplane must be published and made readily available to passengers at airports before boarding.

ARTICLE 8. SAFE CARGO
Hazardous materials and pharmaceutical grade germs and viruses must no longer be permitted as cargo on commercial jets. There is presently a great gap in security between air cargo and passenger operations. It's time to close this gap and make every aspect of aircraft operations safe for passengers.

ARTICLE 9. SAFE WORK RULES
Airline crew of U.S. companies and U.S. air marshals must be offered the same work rules that the government agency OSHA stipulates and enforces for work performed anywhere in the United States. The flying public relies on airline crew and air marshals for their safety, yet airline crews and air marshals now work twelve-, fourteen-, and even sixteen-hour shifts, while also suffering daily from oxygen deprivation, sleep deprivation, and the radical time zone shifts associated with jetlag. It is time to ensure that aviation workers have safe working conditions for their own health and for the safety of the flying public.

ARTICLE 10. REMOVE PREEMTPION
Remove the federal "preemption" that gives airlines immunity from consumer protection laws. Airline passengers have an inalienable right to retain their human rights, one of which is their right to speak when something is wrong on a flight, and another is their right to sue an airline. Our human rights must not be restricted by immunity for the airlines that releases them from their basic obligation to keep people safe.

RECLAIM OUR RIGHTS
Perhaps you now realize, dear reader, that passengers will have to join in the fight to regain their rights, similar to the way nonsmokers had to fight for their right to smoke-free air.

Achieving smoke-free flights was a hard fight that I participated in for many years. When the airlines finally agreed to smoke-free flights, they dragged it on 12 more years, instituting it incrementally beginning with flights under 2 hours.

Smoke-free air travel, as we know it today on all U.S. airliners, represents years of hard work by consumer activists. Passengers and crew can be grateful to the many people involved every time they take a breath of air on an airliner.

The history of no-smoking air travel is an excellent example of a successful consumer activist movement and a great model for changing other unhealthy and hazardous airline policies.
We now need to join together to ban substances such as pesticides that dangerously contaminate the air on airplanes.

We need to keep in mind that enforcement is key in any future aviation regulations. It can no longer be left to the airlines to regulate themselves or to each passenger to battle case by case with the airlines.

Dear readers, you are cordially invited to join me in airline passenger advocacy.

FROM READERS
"My 87 yr. old mother has had two minor heart attacts a day after her last two flight." --Betty Arnovitz

"I am a retired flight attendant for Northwest Airlines. I was based in Honolulu and, for many years, flew military charters to Midway, Kwajalen, and Aneweto. We heard that the Navy was transporting radioactive materials to Johnston Island. Most of my co-workers have died of cancer and I have just been diagnosed with radiation in my bone marrow." --Karl Wust