So you think that after criticizing the tarmac troopers recently, I’ll lay off my monthly series on the tarmac delay hall of shame?
I’m sorry to disappoint you.
The latest losers were released this morning by our friends over at the Department of Transportation. They’re for the month of September.
Only two flights had ground delays that exceeded four hours.
Delta Air Lines flight 1015 from Philadelphia to Atlanta, 9/21/09 – delayed on tarmac 275 minutes
American Airlines flight 1672 from Dallas/Fort Worth to Tulsa, Ok, 9/21/09 – delayed on tarmac 267 minutes
That is just way too long. You don’t need me to tell you that.
If you make it three hours, you see the players don’t change at all. It’s still Delta and American.
I haven’t asked DOT about the reasons for the delays — were they mechanical or weather-related? — but my sense is that since they occurred on the same day, they may have been weather-related.
(FlightAware.com suggests both the American and Delta were delayed because of the weather.)
If there were a “Passenger Bill of Rights” would anything have been different?
Maybe Delta and American would be looking at some fines, but the passengers would have been just as stranded for more than four hours. And I’m not sure they would have received any kind of compensation, under the proposed law.
(Photo: JBoulin94/Flickr Creative Commons)
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m usually not one to stand up for AA & DL but according to Weather Underground’s archives for 9/21 ATL, DFW & TUL did indeed have thunderstorms that day.
I don’t care if it is the weather or not, with the amount of space those people have on those planes, it is crimminal.
If you can’t take off when you are supposed to, let the passengers off.
When I get on a plane, it is enough to be cramped in those seats for the amount of time it takes to fly from A to B and then a reasonable amount of time for takeoff/landing/taxiing and that’s it!!
I never want to sit on the tarmac for four hours.
This didn’t used to happen or be an issue years ago.
Either take off, or let ‘em off…plain and simple.
All this blabbering about passenger bills of rights and whether or not it would work….simply make it a huge escalating fine to keep passengers on the tarmac. That fourth hour should cost about five million dollars. I’m sure that they would find a way to avoid this really quick!
wunderground.com to check weather conditions at a particular locale on a particular date.
One crutial point that nobody seems to note is that flight crews draw NO PAY until the flight actually pushes back. Should a flight return to the gate, flight crews might make very little $$; however, they are making their hourly $$ for every minute they imprison us on the tarmac.
I cannot believe (although I am aware that it is true) that it is legal to not pay employees when they are working. If the crew member is required to be in uniform and spending his/her time doing what the company says (i.e. cannot be wearing jeans, eating, shopping) then they are working and should be paid. Checking passengers at the gate, helping them board, etc is all part of the flight attendant job and should be compensated. Maybe a daily wage or salary is the answer for these companies if they worry that delays and such would have employees milking the clock. But, dealing with a plane full of people delayed for four hours on the tarmac OR in the airport sounds like an awful lot of work to me.
Clearly Chris does not unerstand how our legislation for airline passengers works, or the number of issues we cover in ours, the largest non-profit group for airline passengers is fighting not only to get folks off planes at 3 hours, but we have a bill about to be introduced that will impose hefty fines a portion of which will go to the passengers. Much larger fines than DOT would impose.
We have legislation already in progress to get folks off planes in 3 hours and protect their basic needs such as water, food, temperature control and hygienic toilets that are serviced at any time. We have language already in our bill that states all unbundled fees to be disclosed at point of purchase, chronically delayed and canceled flights per our broad criteria was written for us by Senator Thune and Senator Lautenberg input language that authorizes DOT to investigate far more issues than they are currently aurhorized to investigate.
If Elliot wants to ciriticize allowing passengers off of planes, he should then be honest that the data we are seeing reported represents only about 1/2 of the available data for tarmac events becuase the DOT only reports domestic flights that are greater than 1% of the Gross Domestic Service.
So no international flights, and no code shares which represent a majority of the air travel in the us has to report these incidents. Spirit Airlines in May had 3 jets sit for 9 hours on a divert to Philadelphia. They sat all night with no food, or water, overflowing toilets. So don’t tell me 3 hours is not a huge benefit to airline passengers.
If you’ve experienced it, then you know why there must be legislation.
Kate Hanni
Committed to Travelers and travelers by air.
I was on flight 1015 that day and the pilot kept saying that air traffic control was not letting us off the ground because of weather in our “gate”. Planes were taking off and landing all around us. To add insult to injury, just as we were cleared for takeoff, we went under minimum fuel standards and had to return to the gate, refuel and get back in line. We eventually took off at about 8 PM, 7.5 hours after the original time, missed our connections and weren’t provided with anything for hotel because it was a “weather delay”.