In 2006, traveling with her husband and two children, Kate Hanni was stranded on a commercial jet aircraft on the tarmac in Austin, Texas for nine hours. Surviving horrifying threats to health, she subsequently formed the largest and most successful grassroots passenger rights organization on the planet, FlyersRights.org, and has been fighting mad ever since on behalf of her ‘special interests’, the millions who travel by commercial air.
Working tirelessly, Kate been seen over 800 times in front of TV cameras in her interviews pleading for the humanitarian rights of passengers who pay for timely air service, while demanding adequate food, water, ventilation, working toilets and other expected comforts onboard aircraft during lengthy ground delays. The loud and strong voice of her organization, which has grown to over 25,000 members nationwide, has been heard on Capitol Hill with regard to passage of the 'Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights'.
As mentioned, FlyersRights.org now boasts as the largest nonprofit airline consumer organization in the world and the scope of their organization has expanded to include other passenger rights concerns such as the latest CNN report regarding Aerotoxic Syndrome, a little-reported aircraft health hazard in the United States that has been broadly covered in the media elsewhere abroad. Kate has worked closely with UK aerotoxic organizations such as Global Cabin Air Quality Executive, Aerotoxic.org, and Toxic Free Airlines to bring this potentially serious health hazard to public light. These organizations, which are teamed with other organizations within the Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association, will be discussed in future articles.
Just last year, CNN BusinessTraveller's Ayesha Durgahee was named “Business Travel News Journalist of the Year” for her report on the passenger health hazard. And a amendment was added to the FAA Reauthorization Bill (S.1451 / H.R. 1586)designed to address the problem of toxins in the cabin air on airplanes.
This amendment addresses the issue of toxins entering the ventilation systems on commercial aircraft. Designed to ensure the FAA has the necessary information to protect the American public from exposure to harmful contaminants while flying the amendment calls for the following:
1) It would require FAA to complete a study of cabin air quality within one year.
2) The amendment would provide FAA with the authority to mandate that airlines allow air quality monitoring on their aircraft for the purposes of the study.
Our many thanks go to Kate Hanni and the FlyersRights.org grassroots team for their noble efforts on behalf of the traveling public, but we scratch our heads as to why such organizations are necessary in the first place given the tax dollars we pay each year to salaries of the 535 members of congress who supposedly oversee the Department of Transportation and the FAA to ensure public air transportation safety. Perhaps they need a wake-up call from all of us. They certainly have overslept the past ten years. If you would like additional information concerning FlyersRights.org, please visit their website to join Kate and 25,000 other passengers in consolidating voices to speak out up on Capitol Hill on behalf of those who travel by commercial air. FlyersRights.org shares the common goal of the member organizations of the Whistleblowing Airline Employees Association and the Department of Transportation of ‘making our aerospace system the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world’ for all of our ‘special interests’…the millions who travel by commercial air.
Join Kate on Facebook @ Kate FlyersRights Hanni.
Captain Dan Hanley is on facebook @ ‘Daniel William Hanley’ and on Twitter @DanHanley1 and listen to his archived Whistleblowing Airline Employees Blog Talk Radio interviews of whistleblowers for additional information.
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