Disabled people take warning

[Greg]

I stopped by the bank at the Mall today. It was very crowded with few available parking spaces (close ones anyway). So who do I see parked in the handicapped stall closest to the bank but a Hawaii County Police cruiser (no placard). What a pisser. There was obviously something going on as there was another cruiser parked by the dumpsters next to the bank.

What a clueless officer; of all the illegal places he could have parked, he chose to deny access to a handicapped individual on an extremely crowded day.

I didn't have my camera, so took a pretty much useless photo with my cellphone. drat

[kani-lehua]

auwe!

"chaos reigns within.
reflect, repent and reboot.
order shall return."

microsoft error message with haiku poetry

[roseroo14]

Here is the response that I received today by e-mail, before I make a statement what do you think?

The Lack

February 3, 2009



Mr. Thomas Lackey
VIA email: tlackey@hawaii.rr.com <mailto:tlackey@hawaii.rr.com>

Contact Ref #: 0901208386 Merz/Barbara

Dear Mr. Lackey:

This is in response to your email received by our office on January 8.

As you may know, Hawaiian Airlines adheres to and complies with the 14 CFR
Part 382 or the Air Carrier Access Act (the "ACAA"), which provides that no
air carrier may discriminate against any otherwise qualified individual
with a disability, by reason of such disability, in the provision of air
transportation. Based on the information you have provided, under the Act,
Ms. Merz is a qualified individual with a disability and the provisions of
the Act apply to her. Therefore, we would like to take this opportunity to
summarize parts of the Act that apply to her for air travel.

§382.39 states that carriers shall provide assistance requested by or on
behalf of qualified individuals with a disability, or offered by air
carrier personnel and accepted by qualified individuals with a disability,
in enplaning and deplaning. The delivering carrier shall be responsible for
assistance in making flight connections and transportation between gates.

When Ms. Merz is traveling alone, she may request for our Meet and Assist
Service by calling our Reservations Department toll-free at 800-367-5320.
This will ensure that she will receive assistance from the gate to the
baggage claim. There is no fee for this service when requested by a
qualified individual with a disability.

On behalf of Hawaiian Airlines, we apologize for the poor customer service
Ms. Merz received from our porter in Hilo, as they should not be soliciting
passengers for tips. We are concerned that we failed to meet your
expectations, and we have addressed this issue with our Hilo Station
Manager for her review and necessary action.

Pursuant to §382.65(a), each carrier must have a complaints resolution
mechanism, including designating one or more Complaints Resolutions
Official (CRO) to be available at each airport which the carrier serves.
At Hawaiian Airlines, the Manager on Duty is the designated CRO. As the
CRO, the Manager on Duty has the authority to resolve complaints on behalf
of Hawaiian Airlines.

As a courtesy, we have issued Ms. Merz an e-certificate for $50 off the
purchase of a ticket on Hawaiian Airlines. This certificate is valid until
January 5, 2010 for travel as late as February 5, 2011. Her e-certificate
number is 0901208386 and her redemption code is 01FD0UUVU3KC. Please
follow the instructions below when you are ready to book your flights.
Should you encounter any problems redeeming your e-certificate, you may
contact our Web Support Center toll-free at 1-866-586-9419 daily from 3:00
a.m. to 9:30 p.m. HST.

1) Visit www.HawaiianAir.com/ECertificate
2) Enter the e-certificate number and the redemption codes:
Only one passenger may be booked per redemption code.
3) Click "Redeem E Certificate" button.
4) Complete Booking Process.

This certificate is non-transferable, has no cash value, and may only be
used for travel on Hawaiian Airlines. It may not be used for codeshare
flights or multi-city bookings. The certificate is not valid toward
special services, purchase of miles, or any other fees. Certificate must
be redeemed on line at www.hawaiianair.com/ecertificate.

In the future, should you encounter any problems during your travels which
are directly related to you, please request to speak to the CRO on duty so
that any concerns may be addressed immediately and any action, if any, may
be taken.

We would like to take this opportunity to inform you that if you disagree
with our response or any of the actions we took or believe that we violated
any provision of the ACAA, pursuant to §382.65©, you have the right to
contact the DOT for assistance at the following address: Department of
Transportation, Aviation Consumer Protection Division, 400 7th Street, SW.,
Washington, DC 20590 or call them at 202-366-2220. In addition, the
toll-free number for the DOT aviation consumer disability hotline is
1-800-778-4838 (voice) or 1-800-455-9880 (TTY).

Mr. Lackey, we thank you for allowing us to respond to you, and we look
forward to serving you in the future under more pleasant circumstances.

Sincerely,

Robyn Lopez
Resolution Coordinator
Consumer Affairs Office

The Lack

[Guest]

Tom -

1st
Go back and edit above statement so that only you can use the redemption.

2nd
$50 bucks off a ticket!!! Sounds bogus if you ask me... but at least they did give something. What does $50 bucks off a Hawaiian ticket get you these days... a trip about half way across the islands?

3rd
Contact ADA and file report regardless of outcome.

4th
From looking at what they say is the "regulations" it looks like they only have to cover from gates to baggage claim and vice/versa. I didn't see anything about curbside drop offs.

5th
Comfort wife and let her know that you will not allow this to happen again in future.

6th
If can... use different airline (even though I support Hawaiian)

7th
Drink fifth of Whiskey... go outside with pellet gun and take out frustrations on coquis.[]

Damon Tucker's Weblog

[JerryCarr]

This response is about as good as it gets with the airlines these days. In between all the disclaimers and legal quotes, they DID apologize, propose a corrective action of sorts, and offer compensation. I totally agree with Damon that the compensation bit was inadequate, but it was at least a gesture, if only that.

Tom, hopefully your dear wife will not be so disgracefully treated in the future. Have you called the HA station manager with a description of the person who behaved so badly? Direct consequences to the person responsible along with a generic reminder to all the pertinent departmental personnel would seem to be in order.

Cheers,
Jerry

[Kelena]

Disgraceful. Ask for more and if you don't get it, see an attorney. They acknowledged guilt and admit that it was their porter ("our porter in Hilo"). Smells like intentional infliction of emotional distress to me. This is America. We don't leave our disabled citizens in the rain.

[Bob Orts]

Tom, it was an unfortunate situation. Hawaiian Airlines does appear to be acknowledging poor customer service (not to be confused with a violation of any laws or regulations). They are compensating the traveler for the poor customer service with a credit, something airlines do not have to do. So they are extending a hand of apology.

Their letter is well crafted to comply with laws and regulations to provide their responsibility under ACAA which included telling you the dispute resolution process and your rights to disagree with their handling and take it further. However, it does draw the line between regulatory violation and customer service. They placed this squarely into customer service not for what happened, but for the solicitation of a tip.

Now, as tempting as it may be (and easy for people to advocate) taking this further, take a small step back, breath a bit and look at what they also said in their response. Their responsibility is from gate to baggage, between gates, and boarding and disembarking the aircraft. At best, the porters are told of their responsibility to treat passengers with respect and not solicit tips or face disciplinary action. But in forcing the issue they most certainly will instruct the porters (if not done so already) they are not to go any further than the baggage area with a wheelchaired passenger.

Not an easy decision on what to do next.

[Kelena]

The regulations are an interesting distraction. It is possible that they will trump the body of Hawaiian tort law but only a Hawaii attorney can tell you. There is an argument that when an airline porter (a hypothetical one) undertakes a duty toward a ticket holder and then is negligent in the handling of that duty, that the airline is negligent under the doctrine of respondeat superior (the master is liable for the acts of the servant). The airline may argue that its duty ended at the gate and is subject to Federal regulation and not Hawaii common law. However, one could counter-argue that the porters had a practice (an understandable one) of going beyond the gate to retrieve passengers and that the airline was aware of it and approved of the practice (other than asking for tips) and that these activities were not covered by regulation, but by Hawaiian common law.

These arguments are purely hypothetical. No one is ecnouraging you to litigate. Litigation can be as painful as the incident leading to the litigation. Neither is anyone giving you legal advice as only a Hawaiian attorney can do that (get one from Honolulu if you get one). But we can all agree that a reasonable settlement of disputes is generally best. There is no gold in this. And no one wants to punish Hawaiian Airlines for extending a service to passengers they are not obliged to extend. However, I don't think an offer to give you $50 if you buy a ticket is very reasonable in light of the very pathetic treatment that your wife received.

[David M]

Not sure I can see you winning a big fight here. The $50 offer does seem paltry. Perhaps a nicely worded reply thanking them for their response and yet disappointment over the miserly offer. Perhaps suggest that an offer equal to her round trip that day might be acceptable.

David

Ninole Resident

[roseroo14]

I have been waiting for a few days before responding. I want to thank everyone for taking the time to write in, many mahalo’s to all.

I believe that the airlines are programed to respond to all complaints and placate the complainer. Hawaiian knows after researching my wife’s ticket information that she is traveling on a corporate ticket. That means that she is flying under the Kaiser umbrella of insurance travel. We pay for insurance and Kaiser makes the determination if Barbara should fly to Honolulu or not. Hawaiian is aware that Barbara’s ticket is payed for by our insurance so why not offer her a price reduction, she won’t use it anyway. Dose anyone think that she is going to fly over to Honolulu just for the fun of it?

This is simply a meaningless gesture and has been made with the absents of good faith. The only thing undisputable on all of this is that they have acknowledged a short coming in their organization and “said” they want to ameliorate on it. Do I believe it. In a word, “NO”, it will be business as usual.

I intend to take no further action against Hawaiian, nor will I demand to fly another airline when needed. What I will do is take their advise and bring it to the attention of their, Complaints Resolutions Official [CRO] at the time, should it be necessary.

I intend to give Barbara’s “free” fifty dollar discount to Kaisers insurance broker so that they can receive the discount on her next flight.

On a short airline note:
Flying Aloha the flight attendant crammed a bag in the overhead and cracked a lense on my Neptune sunglasses in my carry-on. You could hear the crack as it happened and I showed her the broken pair. She said fill out a form and we’ll get you a new pair [$130.00] After six months with little to no response they sent me a check for $30.00 saying that they only cracked one lense and the Neptune company is now out of business. Go figure.


The Lack