Judges Ground N.Y.'s Airline Regulation Law

New York State's new law requiring airlines to provide water, food, and clean restrooms for passengers during extended delays on the tarmac has been struck down by a panel of federal judges.

The fate of New York's law — the first of its kind in the country — could discourage other state legislatures from passing similar laws. At least nine other legislatures are currently considering similar bills, according to the decision yesterday by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The panel of three judges that reviewed the state law was unanimous in finding that federal regulation of the airline industry leaves no room for state regulation, even if such regulation is limited to a cup of drinking water.

"Onboard amenities, regardless of whether they are luxuries or necessities, still relate to airline service and fall" within the purview of the federal government, the decision said.

The court expressed concern that states, if allowed, would come up with a multitude of regulations that would prove difficult for the airlines to comply with.

"If New York's view regarding the scope of its regulatory authority carried the day, another state could be free to enact a law prohibiting the service of soda on flights departing from its airports, while another could require allergen-free food options on its outbound flights, unraveling the centralized federal framework for air travel," the court ruled.

The judges who wrote the opinion — Richard Wesley, Debra Livingston, and Brian Cogan — reversed the ruling of a federal judge in Albany, Lawrence Kahn, who found last year that the law was consistent with the state's authority to regulate in the "field of health and safety."

A lawmaker who sponsored the bill said he expected the appeals court's ruling on Tuesday to "chill efforts around the country to enact similar laws."

"The federal courts have pushed the line further than ever in favor of corporate interests instead of consumer protection," Assemblyman Michael Gianaris of Queens said. "It's a disturbing trend that laws are getting stricken which say that a person is entitled to get a sip of water."

A spokesman for the attorney general, whose office defended the law before 2nd Circuit, said the attorney general's office was reviewing the court's decision and had no additional comment. The spokesman, John Milgrim, declined to say whether the attorney general planned to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

New York's law required planes grounded for more than three hours to provide fresh air, lights, food, and water, and to change the rest rooms' holding tanks if needed. The law allowed the attorney general's office to impose a $1,000 penalty for each violation per passenger.

The law was passed last year after reports in February that passengers had been stranded on planes at John F. Kennedy International Airport for more than nine hours.

The House of Representatives has passed a bill that covers some of the same ground as New York's law. But the federal bill would not actually penalize airlines for specific delayed flights on which passengers were left without water or food or working bathrooms for extended periods of time. The federal bill would require airlines and airports to create plans for attending to passengers during long delays on the tarmac.