Delayed? Best to be on Aloha, Hawaiian

Hawaiian and Aloha airlines are the best in the nation when it comes to handling passenger stranding incidents, according to a consumer coalition that wants mandatory reporting by airlines when passengers are trapped in planes for hours while waiting for takeoff.

The two air carriers received the highest grades in a report card issued by the Coalition for An Airline Passenger Bill of Rights, a group that looked at excessive delays, strandings and other factors. Hawaiian and Aloha were given "A's" and also were honored with the group's "Above and Beyond" award.

The coalition, which gathers complaints from its 15,000 members, is pressing U.S. lawmakers to require complete reporting. It also wants airlines to release travelers after three hours of waiting, and stock food and water for delays.

"Passengers have no rights once they enter an aircraft. Incredibly, prisoners of war have more rights than passengers on a commercial airliner," group founder Kate Hanni, 46, said in Washington this week. In December, the Napa Valley, Calif., real estate agent said she was stranded for nine hours on a Texas runway with no drinking water and a packet of pretzels.

The group handed out several other "awards," including one that cited American Airlines for not providing food and having the most known strandings. American had the most negative report card score of airlines in the survey.

Tim Wagner, a spokesman for American Airlines parent AMR Corp. of Fort Worth, Texas, didn't return a Bloomberg News call requesting comment. American is the world's largest airline. United Airlines and US Airways joined American in receiving an overall F grade from the group.

According to the U.S. Transportation Department, 36 planes among all airlines had on-runway delays of five hours or longer last year. Critics say the true number is much higher.

Carriers typically don't report runway strandings if the flight is turned back to the gate and canceled. They also don't report strandings if a plane is diverted in flight to a different airport and kept waiting for hours upon landing.

The approach "disguises inconveniences that the passengers endured," Donald Bright of the department's Bureau of Transportation Statistics said last month.

Jennifer Shirkani tracks her runway strandings on an Excel spreadsheet. The New Hampshire resident, who flew to Washington today to represent the passengers group, says she's endured almost 30 hours of runway delays in the past year and a half.

"That's a lot of missed meetings and lost business," said Shirkani, a business consultant.

Hanni said Hawaiian and Aloha's top ranking may have a little to do with the routes it flies.

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