New rule requires airlines to publicize overbooking
By DEENA KERBOW
Staff Reporter
Overbooking flights is a common practice among air line companies. However, a ruling that became effective yesterday will require airlines to inform the airline company of any confirmed reservations may be bumped from flights.
"All air ticket counters and ticket agent counters must have signs posted about it, and it must be printed on each ticket," said Ted Lopiewicz, chief of civil aviation at CALA. Civil Aeronautics Board (C.A.B.), Washington D.C.
Lopakiewicz said the board's ruling was an effort to force airlines to notify the public of the practice of overcharging.
OVERBOOKING, officially called double-booking,
measures that an airline may make reservations for 15
days.
The idea is to ensure maximum capacity for each trip because the average no-show count is 20 per cent, according to Kitty Hagen of Sunflower Travel Agency.
Hagen had four suggestions for students who would be flying home during Easter vacation:
—Have a ticket before you get to the airport. There
—two lines for checking it at most gates, one for
a plane, one for a taxi.
DON'T WATEN. Haven said a person should encase in 30 to 45 minutes before loading time and sit in a chair or wheelchair.
must buy their tickets. The already-ticketed line moves much faster, she said.
—Arrive in plenty of time.
- Students who want to sit together on a plane should stick together in the waiting room. Don't watch too closely.
Hagen said these suggestions would help but wouldn't ensure that a person would be boarded.
"If you have reservations, she said," and "they are unable to board you, you have rights as an occupant."
"They must get you to your destination within two hours of your appointed time (four hours if it's an afternoon)."
"OTHERWISE, they must pay you a maximum of $200 on the spot in cash, right then and, and you can still keep your ticket, which is valid for another flight or a refund."
A person is paid the price of his ticket up to the maximum $200, which soon will be raised to $400. On a round-trip ticket, the air line has to pay only for the flight for which the passenger is in comprenzed.
And if the passenger is continuing and misses
Students who live close to Lawrence and take commuter flights probably won't be bothered by the weather.
another flight, all expenses must be borne by the airline.
Joe Randall, manager of Lawrence Aviation Inc., said the new rule didn't affect his company.
“ITS DIFFERENT here,” he said. “With our airline we can put on more than one airplane if the other is cancelled.”
Randall said the new ruling applied only to the C.A.B. certificated carriers, which Lawrence Annuity owns.
But, for students who live farther from Lawrence and have a job that requires them to be going to try to make the consumer mind that overbooking is a reality, and he can be bumped. In all probability, if he is a frequent traveler he will be
Hagen and Randall both said airlines had begun overbooking because of the high percentage of no-shows.
*PEOPLE MAKE it a point to make reservations,
*DO NOT make it a point to cancel when they can't
pay.*
Hagen said airlines could afford to pay $200 in compensation to a person who was bumped more
Randall said the new ruling really didn't change anything, it just let people know what has been
easily than they could afford to fly with 20 empt seats.
"I look askance at some of those rules," he said. "They fall into the category of 'Smoking is hazardous to your health.' It must be advertised that it is harmful." He added, "All it does is make people aware that it harms."
Lopatkiewicz said, "Airlines have been overbooking for years, but the controversy started with the Airbus deal."
NADER, A consumer advocate, filed suit against Allegheny Airlines in 1972, after being bumped from a flight which would have taken him to two consumer protection companies and sold 107 tickets although the plane had 100 seats.
Nader charged the airline with fraudulent nuder payment and $25,000 in punitive damages. The citizens' group that had sponsored the rallies received in compensation and $25,000 in punitive damages.
Following the final court ruling on Nader's case in June 1976, airlines began to file tariff notices with the Federal Court. The court rejected the request.
"The airlines said that the tariff notice would protect them from law audit because they had notified the airlines about it."
THE BOARD disagreed
The rulling requires ticket notices and counter posters to read:
“Our office of consumer advocates said that wasn’t sufficient notice because people didn’t even see the traffit notes that were filed,” Loatklewicz said. “So, the board in September 1976, issued a notice of proper rule making, which led to the board’s present interim rule.”
"Airline flights may be overbooked, and there is a slight chance that a seat will not be available on a flight for which a person has a confirmed reservation. A person denied boarding on a flight may be entitled to mandatory payments. The rules for denied boarding compensation are available at all air ticket counters."
THE ODDS against being bumped are about 2,000 to 1, according to a Time magazine article, "A Big Bump in the Air."
The article said that "given the numbers of Americans who fly each year, those odds translate into a small fraction of what we do."
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
The University of Kansas—Lawrence, Kansas
Vol.87,No.118
House committee decides to cut faculty pay raise
The House Ways and Means Committee decided Friday to cut a proposed faculty salary increase for the University of Kansas from 7 to 6 per cent.
"It was more of a cautious reservation that a slap in the face of the faculty," he said.
State Rep. Mike Glover, D-Lawrence and a committee member, said yesterday that the committee decision wouldn't be final until the commission confirms committee might restore the cut.
Vogel said that the full House probably would go along with the committee's recommendation to cut the faculty pay increase from 7 to 6 per cent but that the bill
Glover said the committee didn't want to allot the full 7 per cent until it knew how much money would be needed for primary schools and teachers and state civil service employees.
would go to a joint conference committee because the Senate has already approved the proposal.
STATE REP. John Vogel, R-Lawrence and another committee member, has said increase committee reduction faculty increase committee through the bought employees at the top of the scale should have larger pay raises than a 2.5 per cent raise recommended by Gov. Robert Bennett.
Chancellor Archie Dykes has said he thinks that some classified employees deserve a larger pay raise, but that the proposed salary increase from the proposed faculty salary increase.
DYKES ALSO said he hoped that the full 7 per cent increase would be restored in conference committee as well as a larger 9 percent. The new budget for the 2.5 per cent recommended by Bennett.
KU budget. Glover said KU probably would move it if the items were considered separately.
Bennett's recommendations include a merit pay raise of about 5 per cent for staff who are in their 40s and the top of their pay scales and a 2.5 per cent across-the-board increase for other employees.
The House Ways and Means Committee also voted Friday to cut a proposed 8 per cent increase in KU's operating budget to 7 per cent.
GLOVER SAID KU actually benefited from the decision. The cut in the proposed increase, he said, was caused by the removal of some library and computer funds from the operating budget and their establishment as separate items in the total
Jayhawks lose Texas Relays
Both Vogel and Glover said the appropriations bill containing the faculty pay proposal and the operating budget probably would go to a conference committee. If so, they said, final agreement must not be reached until the department two-or-three-day cleanup session a couple of weeks after the regular session ends sometime this week.
THE SENATE Ways and Means Committee Friday approved a capital improvements appropriations bill, which will be distributed to Malott Hall and Robinson Gymnasium.
See story page seven
Monday, April 4, 1977
Glover said the bill seemed to be in pretty good shape right now" but it was too old. "It's been around for a while."
Dykes said that he was happy that the senate committee had approved the capital investment and have to work with the full House and possibly with the conference committee to restore the full increases to faculty salaries in order to meet these increases were needed to offset inflation.
Del Shanker, executive vice chancellor, yesterday advised the Student Senate not to alter its budget philosophy toward inward migration of students warning the administration of the change.
Sports budgeting topic of retreat
Speaking to about 30 senators at a Senate retreat this weekend at Camp Allendale, near Jingo, Shankel discussed the diffe- cies and challenges of the administration's budgeting process.
"The Senate is a year behind us," he said. "If you cut off funding to anything important now, it would be hard for the University to pick it up."
"The University and the Student Senate should work together," Shankel said, "but some things can't be worked out, especially when they involve money."
The University budget was developed more than a year ago to appropriate money available in July this year. The Senate, as well as the midst of developing its 1977-78 budget.
Shankel said women's intercollegiate athletics should receive about $41,000 in funding.
Steve Leben, student body president, said that Senate funding of women's internships is a priority.
to get the program on its feet, and that the Senate had kept it going since.
"The question is." Leben said, "whether it is the students' and the University's responsibility to bring KU under the requirements of Title IX by July 21, 1978."
★★
Stereo facilities in KJHK budget
KJHK, 90-F-M, aaked a total of $9,068,
which is a block allocation. Its other sources
of funds are a department of radio,
television and film allocation of $2,400 and a
KJHK disco service and underwriting fund
of $400, making a total operating budget of
Radio station JKHJ last night presented its budget request to the Student Senate Communications Committee.
The station's main proposed expenditure
KJHK now serves about 65,000 people in laurence, emphasizing the KU student identity.
Vance reports Soviet opinion to Carter
Charles Hoard, station manager, said a
station to stairer would increase the listening
area.
is for capital equipment. Now a monophonic
station, KHK wants to buy the equipment
WASHINGTON (AP)–President carer, predicting the Russians “will ultimately agree” to reduce nuclear arms, got his first formal, face-to-face report yesterday from Cyrus Vance on why Moscow rejected US. strategic aims limitation proposals.
Applications for Kansan now available
Applications for summer and fall Kansan editor and business manager positions are now available in the Student office, the offices of the dean of men's health, women and in 185 Flt Hall. Applications will be in by $ p.m. this Friday to 150 Flint. The board will interview candidates the afternoon of Tuesday, April 12.
VANCE, NOTING that further talks with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko are to take place next month in Geneva, said arms limitation negotiations weren't for the short-winded, and added that initial failures in Moscow would be overcome.
The report will enable Carter to make key judgments about the rejection. White House Press Secretary John Brennan said.
"I believe the Soviets will ultimately agree with us that it is to the advantage of the American people and the Soviet people and the rest of the world to reduce our dependence upon this destructive weapon," Carter said, referring to nuclear weaponry, as he greeted Vance upon his return Saturday night.
Carter said the United States remains determined "to succeed if it's humanly possible to have permanent friendship with the Soviet Union and to have drastic reductions in dependence on atomic weapons."
Vance has declined to rule out U.S. miscalculations as a reason for the Soviet rejection of American strategic arms limitation proposals.
The proposals Moscow rejected were:
—To ratify the Vladivostok agreement between the two countries limiting nuclear arsenals without deciding whether to include the American cruise missile or the Soviet backfire bomb under the pact.
—To cut the number of each country's ballistic missiles and strategic bombers from 2,400 to between 1,800 and 2,000, and to reduce missiles with multiple warheads from 1,320 to between 1,100 and 1,200.
THE 2,400 AND 1,320 were agreed upon in negotiations at Vlindovistau in 1974.
Tower for civil defense draws fire from city
By DEENA KERBOW
Staff Reporter
City commissioners recently have expressed concern with the visual impact that a proposed 180-foot civil defense radio tower on south Park and downtown Lawrence.
Commissioner Barkley Clark said it would be the tallest tree in the city.
The county-proposed tower is part of a
emergency
Oversee the emergency EPCG in Dauphin
The tower would stand on a triangular base with 15-foot legs and would taper to a 10-foot height.
South Park and the new Douglas County Judicial and Law Enforcement Center on 11th street between New Hampshire and Rhode Island streets.
The tower idea originated in 1975 when Douglas County applied for a federal grant from the Civil Defense Preparedness Agency to finance an EOC.
THE REQUEST was approved, and the original architects made building design choices.
"This has now surfaced and is creating a lot of heartburn," Travis Brass, emergency preparedness director, said Friday. "But, it isn't really all that new. The tower is part of
*DBC* is where law enforcement, search and rescue, fire department, ambulance service operates.
the 1785 eight or nine-page plan change that was here when I took office."
"It is the development of a coordinated plan," he said, "for the local government, industry and private citizens for operating the environment to save lives and property."
Brann explained the concept of emergency preparedness as the total capability of a community to help itself in a disaster.
"IF WE'RE going to have a useful EOC, we must have communication. EOC must be able to communicate with all of the agencies involved in a disaster situation."
volved—can all come together to see the total picture.
must be able to communicate with all of the agencies involved in a disaster situation." Brann said that radio equipment was necessary for communication, and "when you need it, you have to have an antenna and a place to put it."
"We want it on a tower," he said. "You can't lay it on the ground and have it work."
See CIVIL DEFENSE page five