Real passengers' rights

It's too late for the poor souls who were stranded in Denver over the holidays. And all we can do is sympathize with American Airlines passengers who were stuck on a plane in Austin, Texas, for 12 hours last Friday with no food and dirty toilets.

The sad irony is if this had happened in the European Union, these victims of holiday travel hell would have been compensated for their suffering, according to Melissa Petri at roadgladiator.com.

Moreover, she points out that rules which went into effect last year for EU travel also apply to certain U.S. flights.

According to the "Official Journal of the European Union,'' passengers departing from an EU member state, or passengers traveling to an EU member state on and airline based in the EU, are entitled to certain rights in the event of a cancellation or delay.

They all involve hard cash.

For a two-hour-plus delay, victims can claim compensation of 250 euros. For a delay of more than three hours, it's 400 euros, and for over four hours, it's 600. More than five hours, and the passenger is entitled to a full refund, and, if need be, a flight back to the original point of departure.

That's a big difference from the way things work here.

After American Airlines flight 1348 from San Francisco to Dallas sat on the tarmac for 12 hours because of bad weather, the carrier offered an apology and defended doing its best to get passengers to their destinations. The last time a flight delay turned that ugly (in 1999 thousands of Northwest Airlines fliers waited on a dozen planes as storms pounded the Midwest) passengers had to file a class action lawsuit to recover damages.

Do you use foreign carriers for your travel? What's the best/worst thing about them? Write to: Barbara Correa at bboydstoncorrea@yahoo.com.