Remember last summer’s overnight tarmac stranding incident in Rochester, Minn.? The government does. This morning it issued what it called a “precedent-setting” series of fines against three airlines in connection with the lengthy ground delay.
The U.S. Department of Transportation fined Continental Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines $100,000 for their roles in the Continental Express flight 2816 delay, in which passengers were trapped on an aircraft for a total of 9 1/2 hours. The government also assessed a civil penalty of $75,000 against Mesaba Airlines, which provided ground handling for the flight, for its part in the incident.
But that’s not the most interesting part of the story.
These are the first enforcement orders punishing carriers for extended tarmac delays, as well as the first time a carrier acting as a ground handler for another airline has been punished for failing to properly help passengers leave an aircraft during an unreasonably long tarmac delay.
This is also the clearest indication to date that the Transportation Department is taking a more pro-consumer attitude toward enforcing the rules. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood noted,
I hope that this sends a signal to the rest of the airline industry that we expect airlines to respect the rights of air travelers. We will also use what we have learned from this investigation to strengthen protections for airline passengers subjected to long tarmac delays.
Continental and ExpressJet, in separate consent orders, were found to have violated the prohibition against unfair and deceptive practices in air transportation because ExpressJet failed to carry out a provision of Continental’s customer service commitment. The commitment requires that if a ground delay is approaching three hours, its operations center will determine if departure is expected within a reasonable time, and if not the carrier will take action as soon as possible to deplane passengers.
ExpressJet also failed to take timely actions required by its procedures, including notifying senior ExpressJet officials and providing appropriate Continental officials with notice of the delay. Continental was found to have engaged in an unfair and deceptive practice since, as the carrier marketing the flight 2816, Continental ultimately is responsible to its passengers on that flight.
This is a positive development for stranded passengers, but how many passengers are subject to a lengthy tarmac delay? Very few. Hopefully, the DOT will turn its attention to other issues that affect all of us.
Update: Responding to the consent orders, Continental tweeted, “We continue to work with our partners & others to reinforce our Customer First commitments. We will comply with DOT’s consent order.”
(Photo: Caribb/flickr creative commons)
✓ Get the latest travel news, tips and commentary from Elliott’s E-Mail, the subversive newsletter from industry gadfly Christopher Elliott. You’ll travel like a pro. Sign up here. It’s free.
Similar Posts:
- Tarmac delay hall of shame: US Airways loses in latest month
- Transportation Department shifts blame in tarmac incident to Mesaba
- Why was Delta Air Lines flight 745 stuck on the tarmac 392 minutes?
- “Now I know what it’s like to be in hell”
- Which airline kept passengers trapped on the tarmac nearly six hours?
Sign up for my 
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree this is a positive development. But for this to be REALLY “pro-consumer”, they should divvy up the fines among the passengers! After all, aren’t the passengers the ones who suffered?
Which begs the question: where IS the money going? So is the DOT essentially profitting off the misfortune of these poor beleaguered passengers?
Just curious. Hey, if the DOT takes these fines and uses them to work harder to improve things for customers — great. But as someone who once got trapped on the tarmac for a rediculously long period of time, and got NOTHING for it, I’d be a little miffed that somebody else was profitting off my nightmare.
ridiculously not rediculously.
I agree with LeeAnne — I was thinking the same thing: “Great, $1000 per passenger might be a bit of a consolation”, but realized that the money just disappears into a black hole. The individual customers are still left to have suffered the delay plus pay all of their own lodging, car rental, parking, etc penalties caused by it.
I am glad to see the DOT holding Continental accountable too — I have no problem with companies contracting out services, but I can’t stand it when they try to wash their hands of responsibility when they do.
Barbie, darling…do you REALLY want to be doing spellchecks on all my posts? Would you like me to go back and do grammar and spell checks on all of YOUR rambling, nonsensical, illogical and utterly nutty posts over the past month? Trust me, there are exponentially more spelling and grammatical errors in your posts than in any of mine…or in the vast majority of posts from the other frequent commenters in this forum.
I agreed to stop calling you out for all of your racist, intolerant and imbecilic nonsense. I have left you alone to enjoy your mindless and pointless rambles. So can you please stop with the snippy little spellchecks? They bring nothing of value to this forum. And did you forget that you promised Christopher you would stop with this immature nonsense?
Let it go, dear. Holding on to a grudge is unhealthy.
The same sentiments as LeeAnne stated in her post. Where exactly is this money going? It should be divvied up among the passengers and put into their pockets. I don’t see how assessing a fine against the airline solves anything, if the DOT keeps the sum of the money. Poor DOT, they had to suffer by walking to the bank and cashing the check. Want real justice, reimburse the customers for their headaches and suffering. Then, we would have a REAL story to talk about. Since that won’t happen, this is more of a “F-U” to those who spent their day on the plane. Not only won’t they most likely see compensation, but someone else profits off their misfortune.
Justin
I agree that the fine should be divvied up among the passengers. Do those passengers have any recourse against Continental/ExpressJet/Mesaba? I don’t recall seeing how that worked out for the people who actually suffered.
And let’s not forget, the airlines are just gonna recoup these fines by raising the checked baggage fees by $5, or charge extra for a window seat, or use of the toilet. Whatever. Bottom line is… they’re bottom line won’t take the hit from this.
Regardless of where the fines are going, the good thing is that there is starting to be a penalty for stranding passengers on the tarmac, which is a good thing. Hopefully, it will provide a deterrent.
Justin and Jeanne, Iam in total agreement. The only solution I can think about is perhaps a class action suit. I do not know how feasible be that would be.
Don’t worry about this fine money. I assume the passengers have pending lawsuits for much larger sums of money. They will be able to use the fact that that the government has fined all the airlines as evidence in these lawsuits increasing their odds of winning their lawsuits.
All… According to Continental (still trying to find the report where I read it and will post the link if I do), everyone on the flight received a full refund plus added “thank yous.”
In that case, I think Continental has gone well above what other airlines have done in this case. I guess it shows why Continental continues to rank high for customer service
I agree Bill, atleast there is fine associated with the tarmac delays. Because of the ridiuclous govt spending I figure DOT is operating on a slim budget. Hopefully the money they receive will be put away to help with future admin and court costs against the airline companies that break these rules. Apart from these fines from DOT, the passengers should email and call the airline and nicely ask for recompense because more times than not the airline will reimburse them with either coupons, vouchers, or sometimes refunds. Thanks for the update Chris :-)
barbie45, that’s I am, not Iam. The latter is dog food. See, anybody can make a mistake.
@Dave…ROFL! Thanks for jumping in and defending me. Nobody likes to have their nose rubbed in their minor typos…it’s just rude.
Thanks Dave, never heard of that dog food. by the way happyholidays
A thing to note is lawyers essentially (if not always) take the biggest cut out of a possible class-action suit, even if it’s intended to make a point. Not to mention it’s sometimes (if not always, either) difficult to turn it into one to begin with.
Pardon me for being harsh, but I thought the last comment, “Hopefully, the DOT will turn its attention to other issues that affect all of us,” was disgingenuous. There are few of us who die in air crashes so the DOT should pay more attention to something that affects us all?? Like the quality of pretzels and peanuts since more of us encounter those than encounter crashes? Easy to make a comment like that about delays unless you happen to one of those impacted directly. Or may be some time in the future.