Cheatin’ airlines fudge departure times, says government
A just-released government report has found that when it comes to reporting their departure times, some airlines have been cheating. How’s that? If, for some reason, a flight has to return to the gate, carriers have been reporting the second departure — not the first — as their actual departure.
Put differently, let’s imagine you’re running a race, but you get off to a bad start. So you just return to the line, reset the clock, and start again.
The Transportation Department puts the problem in more diplomatic terms, saying that some carriers are “not uniformly reporting” instances when departing flights returned to the gate and then departed the gate a second time. “The gate departure time that should be reported is the time when the aircraft first left the departure gate,” it says.
But now the government has said “enough.” In a technical directive made public late yesterday, the feds clarified the reporting of gate departure times when a flight returns to the gate. It basically says airlines aren’t allowed to reset the clock again.
(I should note that the actual directive is dated this April. Given the public outcry around that time about long tarmac delays, it makes me wonder why the government took so long to make this document public on its Web site. Who was it protecting?)
The DOT didn’t name names, but it’s not too difficult to guess which airlines have been cooking the books. At least three airlines have been fined by the feds for inadequate reporting.
Interesting side note: the most telling part of the report involved another type of delay — that involving airport security. I quote:
Long lines at the passenger screening area can cause carriers to delay flights, cause passenger inconvenience and anxiety, and create its own security risks. By the nature of the airline business, many screening areas have processing peaks and valleys, which generally result from a large number of flights being scheduled in a short period of time.
While the Department is not mandating how air carriers schedule flights, it may be in the carriers’ self-interest to review scheduling practices to alleviate delays both inside the airport and on the tarmac.
While TSA is in control of passenger screening, the air carriers are responsible for managing the lines up to the screening lanes. Carriers can alleviate the need hold flights for passengers in screening queues by bringing those passengers to the front of the line. Managing the line becomes more problematical when the carrier has multiple flights scheduled to depart at the same time or multi carriers use the same screening areas.
Lines at some screening points amass early in the morning, after there were long lines at the carriers’ check-in-counter. The check-in lines quickly disperse when air carriers add service agents. These passengers gather at the screening queue. The problem could be lessened or avoided by air carriers rescheduling service-agents assignments to encourage a more even flow of passengers to the screening areas.
You know, it sounds to me like the government is blaming the airlines for the long wait times we passengers have to endure at the airport. Then again, maybe I’m reading this the wrong way.
But I digress. What’s wrong with this picture? The airlines are on the honor system to report their arrival and departure information, and that’s just stupid.
Passengers are entitled to on-time information that’s reported by an objective third party, and delivered in real time. In other words, what the system needs isn’t another directive — it needs an overhaul.
You may also be interested in these articles
Comments
2 Responses to “Cheatin’ airlines fudge departure times, says government”
Please share your thoughts...
To me it sounds like the gov’t is saying: “You may plan all your flights in the morning, but don’t blame the TSA for not being able to manage the secutiry lines.” I.e. it is shifting the blame for the long security lines from the (failing) TSA to the airlines. It seems to me that the TSA can check the flight schedule and adjust their staffing appropriately. It also seems to me that the FAA could just limit the number of take-offs in a certain time period, if the gov’t feels to many planes are taking off.
But oh no! That would require to parts of the gov’t to work together. FAA and TSA. DOT and DHS. 3 miles and metro stops away from each other. Sorry, I realize I am asking too much return for my tax dollars. What has the TSA cost so far? 4 billion? Isn’t that $1333 per American? I figure a couple of $1.35 metro tickets should be found in there.
Also, it seems that the gov’t is telling airlines to make passengers who are late at the check in counter jump in line, so they reach their flight in time. Great, so I get up early to stand in line for my early flight while people who slept in get to jump in line. “Gov’t policy”. Thanks, but not really.
BTW: Do the control towers monitored by the FAA not monitor when a plane pushes off? Can’t they just provide those numbers? And add the time that passed between push- and take-off? Oh sorry. I forgot. That would be ridiculous. The gov’t monitoring something itself, what can be out-sourced.
FAA and TSA. DOT and DHS. 3 miles and metro stops away from each other. Sorry !These officials would never ride the Metro when they can order a limo .The cheapest solution is to tell the government to change their foreign policy and there wont be a need for TSA & DHS but I guess TSA is owned by some republicans To undo the mistakes and added cost to the customers It would require to change the government Which is happening in Australia and even the new government has thrown out the Homeland security issue because they realize you do not need an additional body if your Police is good enough and there is trust between each dept .