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.
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Unlike some of my esteemed travel writing colleagues, I won’t make the mistake of confusing a few tarmac delay activists with the entire passenger rights movement. Still, the