Contact: Amy Wolf, Vanderbilt University News Service, 615-322-NEWS, amy.wolf@vanderbilt.edu  

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Mar. 13 /Standard Newswire/ -- "It's time to regulate the airline industry; customers need a passengers' bill of rights." A recent massive snowstorm grounded and delayed hundreds of flights across the country. While many airlines found successful ways to handle the delays, some Jet Blue customers were trapped on planes for more than nine hours, with overflowing toilets. Other passengers were forced to camp out for days at airports, with no clear solution from Jet Blue. Airline expert Michael Lapré believes this latest evidence of "massive miscalculations from the airlines," shows that it is time for regulation.

Photo: Michael Lapré

Lapré has done extensive research on customer complaints and the airline industry. He says an airline passengers' bill of rights will help prevent costly lawsuits, like the class action suit filed against Northwest Airlines in 1999 after a similar snowstorm. Lapré says it will also force the airlines to think about the "big picture" and prepare an emergency plan ahead of time, to protect passengers. "Airlines have a big incentive to make passengers happy," says Lapré. A passengers' bill of rights will create regulations to make those passengers more secure.

Lapré's earlier research on customer dissatisfaction found, if airlines want to reduce costs in the long term, they must fix quality first. "Otherwise you'll just keep pouring money into fixing quality problems; you have to protect the customer."

Michael Lapré is an associate professor of management at the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management. He co-authored an award-winning paper on airline customer complaints called "Performance Improvement Paths in the U.S. Airline Industry: Linking Trade-offs to Asset Frontiers." He recently completed research on mishandled baggage by the airlines and whether airlines learn to reduce customer dissatisfaction after consumer complaints.