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Delta wins tarmac delay hall of shame in latest month as airline complaints skyrocket

December 8, 2009

delta3The October tarmac delay numbers have just been released by the Transportation Department, and there’s good news: No one had to wait on a parked plane for more than four hours.

The bad news? Plenty of people had to wait more than three hours.

And more bad news: The number of airline complaints is up. Way up.


The department received 896 complaints about airline service from consumers, up 42.4 percent from the 629 complaints filed in October 2008 and 48.3 percent more than the total of 604 received in September 2009.

The increase in the number of October complaints is attributed primarily to British Airways’ erroneous offer of $40 fares between the United States and India. The carrier has agreed to compensate consumers for cancellation penalties and other expenses incurred due to the mistake.

I covered the BA debacle extensively on this site. Sad story.

As for tarmac delays, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics suggests there are plenty of contenders for this month’s tarmac delay hall of shame.

Delta Air Lines wins for the month, with 5 of the 12 flights. If you include its regional carriers, Delta absolutely dominates the field. Passengers on Delta flight 229 from New York to Salt Lake City had the longest wait — 229 minutes — on Oct. 3.

Oh well. There’s always November.

(Photo: Matt Hintsa/Flickr Creative Commons)

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

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8 comments

  • Steve

    i wonder if delta’s bad rap has anything to do with the fact they are also the largest carrier.

  • http://www.theticket-atlanta.com chris

    Ugly stats like this are what happens when Delta adds too many flights at JFK where its facilities date from the days of the Boeing 707.

  • John

    Chris …. Better point is that 92% (11 of 12) of the flights are from 1 airport (JFK). I’d be more scared to fly out of JFK than fly on DL.

  • Christopher Elliott

    @John, good point. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

  • Wrona

    So what kind of weather problems was New York experiencing the afternoon of 10/3 and the evening of 10/24 since you know that’s going to be the excuse that the airlines give for this.

  • Joe Farrell

    Here is my story of my recent to LA – nothing happened.

    The flights were on time, mostly. The flight attendants were fine. The TSA mellow, the car rental waiting on time with no hassles, the hotels had my room without fuss and traffic in LA was tolerable. How often does that happen?

    See Chris – it IS possible!

  • Di

    I live near JFK, so it’s a convenient airport for me to fly in and out of. After spending 1.5 hrs waiting to take off at 9pm to go to Mexico, I decided to try and take only very early morning flights. The difference was amazing. If we pulled away from the gate at 7am, we were in the air by 7:15.

    By midday, there are 10 flights lined up to take off. This is the main source of the problems. Too many flights leaving around the same time. That being said, I would rather fly out of JFK than LGA. Those short runways make me nervous.

  • Davd

    All of the JFK delays also happened on two dates,10/24 and 10/3. I would be really interesting to do a bit more investigation to fin out why those two dates were such a problem.

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