On the recordFebruary 17, 2011
Senator Boxer--and not everybody knows this--is the author of the passengers' bill of rights. It has been an obsession of hers. It is not about helping airlines; it is about helping human beings. That has been a long process on the committee. It is in the bill. It is a very good part. She is responsible for all of that. When Senator Boxer talks about more flights to the West, she echoes my deepest thinking. It is hard sometimes for people to understand. We are the East, and we get the feeling that everything happens in the East. But the fact is, the West is growing and the East is not. All of our slots are predicated on the fact that everybody lives in the East. Yes, there are some people out West--well, there are a lot more people out West. Los Angeles is huge beyond belief. That happens to be the home of Senator Boxer. But there are a lot of cities out there which don't get service and should have service. We have tried to address that in this bill. The slots issue has been a very difficult one in the bill. But we have tried to address that by allowing the Department of Transportation to say: Are they getting enough? Is DC overcrowded or is it not? If it isn't, then they allow more to come on. I enormously appreciate Senator Boxer in general. She chairs an important committee, but she comes to our hearings and always makes enormous contributions. On this bill of rights she is the author, which puts her right up there with the Founding Fathers.
