The Obama administration imposes a 3 hour maximum on airlines that strand passengers on the tarmac, after which they must be let free. Airlines must also provide water to stranded passengers and let them go to the lavatory. The airlines imply that they'll cancel flights to avoid the consequences. Yes, attack your customers! That's the spirit!
3 hour limit imposed on grounded airplane lockups
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The key point is that this doesn't go into effect for 120 days, so it won't comfort anyone these holidays, nor protect any one delayed as a result of the weekend east coast storm.
"Yes, attack your customers! That's the spirit!"
Works for the recording industry.
-- MrJM
Well, maybe they *should* cancel some freaking flights. If you try to schedule 50 flights an hour into LaGuardia on a day when (due to weather, say) it can only accommodate 35/hr, guess what, you're either going to have some planes sitting on the ground for a while (this is what a "ground stop" is), or you're going to have canceled flights. The fundamental problem is this:
1) there are a finite number of planes that can land at a given airport in a given time period,
2) the amount in 1) decreases drastically when the weather is anything less than perfect, and
3) the airlines could not possibly care less about 1 and 2, so long as people keep buyin' them plane tickets.
Actually this rule is already being applied. CO 78 on Saturday was cancelled due to this, for instance. Thanks Barack, for another genius piece of legislation.
I've heard a few reasons why airlines like to keep passengers captive on planes.
1) If you get off a plane because of "airline problems", then the plane is obligated to find you some other passage (maybe via competitors) at their expense.
2) I passengers are kept on the ground in a plane for 8 hour and not allowed off, then that flight can officially count as in the successfully "completed" category - which is quite important. (I once bought a new car from a dealer that had the "highest customer satisfaction" rating in the area. It turned out the way they achieved this was to deny there was any problem at all until something literally fell apart or caught on fire).
MonkeyBoy -
A far more common reason to keep the plane locked up is to "capture" the crew. Flight crews are limited by regulation as to how many hours they are allowed to fly in a day, a week, a month (to avoid having them fall asleep at the controls). But they are allowed to complete the flight in progress - which begins as soon as the doors close and doesn't end until the plane is at full stop and the doors open again. But open the doors to let the stranded passengers off, and you lose the crew. It may well turn a four-hour delay into a twelve-hour delay as you then have to let the crew eat a meal, check into a hotel, get eight hours' sleep and return to the plane. (Or you have to find another crew that *is* legal).
So the airline is abusing the passengers in order to abuse the crew.
"I want to die in my sleep peacefully like my grandfather, not screaming in horror like his passengers."
Kevin Kenny: Exactly. Not only does this give cooped-up passengers some freedom, it helps ensure that flight crews are rested and safe to fly.
Large airports are already dangerously overcrowded. Running ever more flights per hour through centralized "hub" airports is not the solution. I don't live in Atlanta or Chicago, and I sure as hell dislike having to fly backwards halfway across the country only to change planes in there.
The answer to more flights is to spread the flights out to more, smaller airports.
As we speak my boyfriend has been sitting in a plane at JFK for over an hour. JFK is his destination airport, not his origin.
I have had a great fear of being kidnapped by an airline for some time. Primarily because I am almost certain I would reach some breaking point where I would insist they let me off and if they refused I can see myself opening up the emergency door. Not a sane move, but at least being arrested would achieve the goal.
As such, this law greatly reduces the chances I'll commit a felony.
Question, if they go beyond 3 hours, does the fine begin to increase with additional hours? Or, if they hit 3 hours are they free to keep me captive indefinitely for the same price?
Count this as the first bit of Change & Hope I've seen come out of the Obama administration.
Year 1: Airline Passenger Bill of RIghts.
Years 2, 3 and 4?
damned if you do damned if you dont.. people were howling about those folks kept on a plane for 7 hours.. so he does something to try and prevent it and now people are complaining about THAT..
he can't win..
As a commercial pilot, I have to say I dislike this rule.
Does it suck to be sitting on the tarmac for 3 hours? yes.
Is it the airline's fault? Almost never. (The glaring exception being the RJ that kept pax on board overnight and became the impetus of this legislation.)
There are more variables here than just "::knee jerk:: airline is abusing passengers. FINE THEM! Make them stop!"
Most delays are due to weather, maintenance, traffic flows, or departure space. None of which the airline can control. And to have a plane sitting in the takeoff queue for 3 hours, slowly making its way to #1, only to turn around and go to the terminal to let off some pax who feel they've sat too long, losing takeoff priority in the process? Ludicrous.
Delays are a reality of air travel. (And the vast majority of them are there for YOUR safety)
Don't like it? Take a bus.
"don't like it, take a bus"
What a moron. How about the Airlines in conjunction with the Airports work together to figure out a better way to serve their customers.
Legislation like this wouldn't be necessary if you guys would at least treat the passengers better and offer some sort of accommodation or repayment for our lost time.
They're talking about fines of $27K per passenger per violation. That's more than $3M for a fully loaded 737. Of course airlines are going to cancel flights if that's the consequence.
What a highly intelligent and insightful comment.
Except... I want to cross a damn ocean 99.9% of the time I choose to fly. (Most other times I choose NOT to fly precisely because airlines cop your attitude. That's your lost revenue and income, not mine.)
I sincerely hope other commercial pilots have a better grasp of geography and pragmatism when they man or woman the plane I happen to be flying in.
Meanwhile, the simple fact of the matter is that for better or for worse, airlines had the power to pull the stunt that forced the rule. Now they don't. I'm more than happy with that. The airline industry is hardly doomed, it'll adapt one way or another.
Finally and most importantly, have you forgotten the simple fact that passengers simply do not want to sit on the tarmac for 3 and a half hours without option to debark? No other service industry is permitted to constrain your physical being for anything resembling that length of time. We make a concession to airlines and Ferris wheels because of practical considerations. Ultimately, people are not simply numbers and widgets to be moved, they want and deserve to be treated with respect.
While it may be true that airlines cannot control the factors you cite, they can foresee them -- particularly when they're going to result in 3+ hour delays. If weather/maintenance/queuing are going to result in a 3:00pm flight remaining on the ground until at least 6:00pm, the airline should be aware of this and delay boarding. If they can't do this under the current system, then the system needs to be changed and perhaps this legislation will push things in that direction.
Anon@11: RTFA. If the plane makes it to the front of the queue traffic control will declare going back to the gate disruptive - because it would be. Also, the only cause of delays that you list which is fully out of the control of the airlines is weather.
Your attitude sucks. If we all follow your advice to take the bus, the airlines will no longer have a reason to exist. Neither will your job.
Of course you don't like it when teh airlines have to cancel a flight because they've over booked the capacity of the airport. You probably don't get paid as much even thought you do get a nice, free hotel room & meals
Maybe if hey didn't have coach packed like a cattle car so people weren't sitting on each others laps (kinda like your accomidations..)people would be a little more forgiving.
And who gets this $27k per passenger? Yeah, the gov't and NOT the passenger? WTF, sounds like more gov't waste to me.
How about giving each passenger $27K?
@commercial pilot, it seems like better airport management/FAA procedure would change the queue process to not require physically being loaded and away from the gate until 15 minutes before projected departure. Understandably, they are optimizing for multiple factors, in the air, at the destination, and on the tarmac, but changing the equation to allow people more liberty in terminals when delays are already known prior to boarding would result in so much greater customer satisfaction and efficiency (not to mention being good for the bottom line of airport bookstores, ISPs, and restaurants) that it offsets the additional customer-capacity, gate-management, and customer-service issues it could create. Perhaps, at check-in, give passengers a pager as some restaurants do for customers awaiting tables (physical or virtual via web/mobile app/SMS) and let them choose the # of minutes of warning they need to get to the gate.
@Ted8305, I appreciate your insight about "crew capture." When I see something sub-optimal like this going on, my first instinct is to try to figure out what perverse incentives are in effect.
@Anonymous #4, OK, you can blame the President for every flight cancellation from now on (as the airlines may well do if they're feeling politically antsy). So long as you give him credit for every flight successfully completed as well.
Oh. From the article:
Since the security rules are ostensibly secret, the airlines can make them up as they go along. I predict that the next night-long tarmac delay will carry the excuse "Federal security regulations prohibit us from discharging passengers at this time." If anyone takes them to court, the airline will simply tell the judge that they can't present the evidence why they had to hold the passengers, because it's a secret. Presto, off scot-free.
It works for wiretapping, why shouldn't it work for false imprisonment?
> No other service industry is permitted to constrain
> your physical being for anything resembling that
> length of time.
Well, as we learned Sunday the Long Island Rail Road will call the police to keep people from escaping from a train that's been without heat, lights or bathrooms for three hours in a blizzard. A train that was all of 415ft from the platform.
am I the only person who is like "well no duh"?
i have a minor but chronic medical condition, so just being engaged in flying for the normal ten hours or so required of a typical cross country trip is extremely taxing.
to be literally held captive additional hours without water(?) or functional bathrooms? Talk about terrorism; how orwellian.
"As we speak my boyfriend has been sitting in a plane at JFK for over an hour. JFK is his destination airport, not his origin."
I hope he isn't using a GSM phone on the plane. My ears hurt just thinking about it.
Good luck getting off the plane. They can still hold people on planes for security and safety reasons. One or the other will apply (according to the airlines) any time the passengers are held more than three hours.
I understand it's not (generally, entirely) the airlines' fault. What I don't get why airlines can't anticipate at boarding time that there will be over 3 hours' delay in taking off. If they know the the posted boarding time is at least 4 hours from any realistic takeoff time, shouldn't they just announce the same at the departure lounge, reschedule the boarding time, and leave passengers freedom to walk about, stretch their legs, get a meal, find a spot to nap?
Let them cancel flights. Now they'll have to PLAN FOR and DELIVER a more acceptable level of service, or cancel a flight and absorb the costs of the cancellation. When their finances start hurting, they'll pay more attention to worrying about their passenger's welfare.
This may meay that there will be less flights available from some airports, but things should shake out and settle into a more positive atmosphere for passengers.
It seems like there are a few airline industry insiders here, so could one of them give one good reason that it is better to wait in the plane, and exploiting loopholes in safety regulations or quirks in compiling statistics are very bad reasons.
Some anonymous commercial pilot says "And to have a plane sitting in the takeoff queue for 3 hours, slowly making its way to #1, only to turn around and go to the terminal to let off some pax who feel they've sat too long, losing takeoff priority in the process? Ludicrous."
What's ludicrous is a system built around airplanes standing in line for no reason than there being a line. NYC has had a law against trucks and buses idling more than three minutes since 1971. I think it's time to extend it to airplanes, for say a half hour.
Sometimes waiting is unavoidable, but why on an airplane?
I'd sincerely like to know the argument in favor of sitting on the tarmac in a queue more than 3 deep.
That's an awesome point, hep cat. Every airplane already has a unique tail number, call sight, or whatever. There's no need for every airplane waiting to take off to sit on a taxiway with its engines idling for hours on end.
Clearly, landing airplanes that are short on fuel have a bit of a priority for runway use. Other than that, though, let each departing plane take a number and call them when their time is getting close.
Might as well pass the transparency back to the airlines, too. If the flight has no hope of making the runway for another 2 hours, there's no point boarding the pax only to sit around. .... and if that doesn't suit the airline, maybe they should fly out of a different airport (yeah, fuck hub airports again!)
Go to the source, read the rules:
http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/contentStreamer?objectId=0900006480a6e352&disposition=attachment&contentType=pdf
Obama is taking the AIR out of AIRlines!! First we can't say Merry CHRISTmas and now we can't wait in our seat all night!! Govt wastage!! And he's been in office for MONTHS and the world hasn't changed yet - I can't believe I voted for the do-nothing!
Yes. Flights get delayed/cancelled for all the sundry reasons listed above. But we're talking about loaded planes that have pulled away from the terminal. Few delays in excess of 3+ hours happen in this scenerio. More common is the kind where people DON'T get a chance to get on their plane, and make themselves cozy on the terminal floor.
Flights get cancelled all the time. But now, there seems to be a logic in these comments that if an airline cancels a flight becasue they foresee a 3+hour wait ON the tarmac, that no flights from that airport or airline will ever go to your desired destination. Ever again. Once a flight is canceled, the route is canceled. Or does it mean there will most liekly be another flight in a few hours, which should be fine by you, because you just dodged a bullet of sitting with your seatbelt on for 3 hours instead of enjoying Hudson News and Cinnabon.