I felt sorry for JetBlue passengers in the United States who were horribly delayed when the airline incompetently handled the recent dreadful weather in the North East USA. JetBlue failed to cancel flights, kept passengers imprisoned on planes for hours and all in all behaved like a low cost carrier!

It follows several other incidents where passengers have borne the brunt of bad airline management during bad weather. In Dallas, American Airlines kept passengers on board a grounded plane for eight hours when their flight was delayed. And at London Heathrow thousands of passengers were stranded at the airport because of fog!

These incidents reminded me of that magnificent film “The V.I.Ps” made in 1963. I watched it again to remind myself of how good air travel used to be. The film is the tale of high-profile passengers who are delayed because of fog at London Airport. One passenger has to be out the country by midnight for tax reasons, another (Elizabeth Taylor!) is eloping with her lover, while a businessman must get to New York to save his company.

It is the way airline, BOAC, supposedly handles the delay that amused me. They make proper lunch provision in the restaurant – no measly vouchers! Then when that becomes an overnight stay they make suitable hotel reservations for passengers. Imagine that! These days it is more likely to be a shrug of the shoulders and a snarling: “Weather delays, mate. Not our fault. You’re on your own!”

To its credit, JetBlue has done a mega mea culpa and issued a passengers’ Bill of Rights setting out how it will deal with bad delays in the future. The CEO David Neeleman must be congratulated for being open, honest in making his apology and for and making the first move. But it is not enough.

With passengers up in arms, the U.S. Congress seems ready to act with plans to get rid of the current voluntary code of conduct and legislate compensation for delays, denied boarding and lost luggage.

It will end in tears and no benefit to the passenger. Why?

Because in Europe there has been such a Bill of Rights setting out rules for delays and denied boarding since 2005. It has not been a great success. The get-out clause is that the airlines only have to pay if the delay is their fault or within their control or not as a result of “extraordinary circumstances” (bad weather, air traffic control delays, technical faults – whoops - extraordinary circumstances. Sorry, no compensation!)

The reality is that the airlines have behaved so shabbily in recent years that there is no sympathy for their (correct) plea that sometimes circumstances are outside their control, so why should they pay?

Pah! We want revenge for those hours spent sitting in lounges because they have overscheduled the airline. Or worse, time spent on planes waiting for arrival gates to become free. We are sick and tired of the “sorry, not our fault” attitude and we want the airline to suffer like we have had to! We have had enough.

I think the whole thing can be summed up by the words of the Duchess of Brighton in the “The V.I.Ps” movie: “What a ridiculous form of locomotion flying is. They tie you into your seat and tell you you’re going. Then they make hair raising noises with the engines. Then they untie you and tell you you’re not going at all. Can you imagine the Queen Mary behaving like that?”

Quite, your Grace, quite!