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Careful what you say
Bill of Rights
Airline Mismanagement
Airport Security

Being held captive. Nobody appears to care about passengers waiting in the plane for hours and hours for take off.

Nobody decides: "This is unacceptable. Get those passengers off the plane. We can't leave them on the tarmac all day."

After the plane pushes back from the gate, airline ground employees have released you and moved on. Pilots, occupied with the complexities of flying, rarely taxi back to the terminal to let the passengers out.

The airlines are self regulated. All they have to do is say they've made a "reasonable effort." Why? Because the airlines have pressured Congress, claiming that self regulation is all that's needed.

So what's a passenger to do? It's important to do something. Here's why. Aircraft ventilation is not turned on until after takeoff, so you're sitting with microbial concentrations escalating steadily.

20 years ago the National Academy recommended that no plane with passengers should remain without ventilation for longer than 30 minutes. Both the FAA and the airlines have ignored this recommendation for passenger health and safety.

Now the FAA is talking about getting passengers off the plane after three hours. Better than nine hours, but not good enough.

Airborne contagions spread quickly. Some years ago, at a remote airport in Alaska, a flight was delayed for four hours with one passenger ill at the beginning of the delay. After four days, 72 percent of the passengers were ill. The National Academy noted that if the flight had been delayed in a large city, no one physician, as there was at this remote location in Alaska, would have been able to recognize the ramifications of contagious diseases spreading on delayed aircraft and the potential of an epidemic caused by delays on the tarmac.

Sitting on the tarmac more than one hour and thirty minutes, here's what passengers can do:

1) After three hours maximum sitting on the tarmac, call the FBI on your cell phone and tell them you are being held hostage. The telephone number for FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. is (202) 324-3000.

2) Help others. Look around to see if there is anyone who might need assistance. An elder or a single parent who may need a break.

3) Be prepared for delays whenever you fly: with a good book, paper to document the incident, a snack, and liter of water (even if you have to pay $4 for it in the airport).

4) Since state of mind can effect your health, do everything you can to keep an upbeat outlook during the ordeal.

LETTERS FROM READERS

"If people are held for hours and hours, couldn't they get back to the terminal with some simple peaceful disobedience? If even 10% of passengers inflated their life jackets, the plane would have to return to the terminal, wouldn't it?" -Geoffrey Teabo

FROM DIANA: Gandhi was very brave when he faced being beaten for his peaceful disobedience. Surely the airlines won't beat passengers for inflating their life vests. What they will probably do is fine each passenger for some outrageous sum for refolding the vest. So I suggest, if you follow this plan you carefully examine the vest yourself before inflating it, so you can repack it when you get back into the terminal. Then, what will the airlines do? Hmm. Maybe they'll take you to court for "interfering with the duties of a flight attendant" and threaten you jail time.