Airlines Will Cancel Flights Rather Than Risk Fines
Yup.
Passengers may soon be seeing more cancellations on airport departure boards.
Several airlines, including Fort Worth-based American and Houston-based Continental, say they will cancel flights rather than risk paying stiff penalties for delaying passengers on the runway.
Continental’s CEO told investors Tuesday that the airline will opt to cancel flights rather than chance being fined.
Aviation consultant Denny Kelly expects other airlines to follow suit.
“I think all of them will cancel flights,” he said. “They’ll do it partially because they think they are going to punish passengers, and if they punish them, someone will get this legislation removed.”
Under new federal guidelines that take effect next month, airlines can be fined up to $27,500 per passenger if a plane is stuck on the tarmac for longer than three hours.
Gee, who could have predicted this?
Delays throughout the airport are several hours long. The airlines don’t want to risk anyone staying out there too long, so they just cancel the flights
Or maybe what they could do instead is, you know, let people get off the plane in the event of a 5 hour delay.
Posted by scott on March 10, 2010 at 1239 hrs
True that Scott. None of this would have been necessary if the airlines and airports were capable of applying a modest level of common sense to these situations.
I would rather have my flight cancelled than to be stuck for nine hours in a plane that’s only equipped for 3 hours of flight.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 10, 2010 at 1332 hrs
This is just one more reason why I hate flying. I’m not fearful of flight, mind you. I just hate airports and all the screwing around associated with getting on and off the plane. I’d rather drive five hours to the twin cities than spend even two hours in an airport.
Posted by scott on March 10, 2010 at 1336 hrs
If they cancel the flights, they have the responsibility to find a replacement ride for their customers. I do hope Continental and American don’t think they will be allowed to get away with lying about mechanical problems.
Anyway, if American and Continental don’t like customers, the customers will eventually find airlines that will treat them better. If you don’t mind being treated like cattle, enjoy your flight.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 10, 2010 at 1646 hrs
Just another bit of unintended consequences brought to you by the party of hope and change.
Here is the problem. When a flight has left the gate, it’s a difficult process to return to the gate and unload… there may not even be a gate available to do so. The plane is also in line for take off and leaving that queue is difficult as well.
Often, the airline does not know when the flight may be able to leave. It may leave in 10 minutes, or two hours. By placing this ridiculous time limit and fine into effect, it leaves the airline with no other reasonable choice but to cancel the flight with plenty of time left before fines are imposed. Sure, had they waited another 20 minutes, the flight might have left… but their hands are tied by some far away bureaucrat with little or no airline experience or knowledge. Sure, the passengers are far more inconvenienced by having a flight canceled than they would have been waiting another hour or two… but the politicians had to stick their beaks in and regulate.
Once again, the unintended consequences are far worse and far more frequent occurring than the original problem. What will be now? Well, the politicians will never blame their foolish policy, they’ll blame the evil airline… as will their hopey changey supporters. There will be some whining and howling for the cameras, a few anecdotal experiences will prove how dire the problem is, and some new, and even stupider regulation will be laid down like an edict from Pharoh…. and then… things will get even worse than before. Rinse. Repeat
Welcome to the age of benevolent over-regulation and cradle to grave care… and it won’t end till people start blaming the problem on the folks that caused it… your government at work.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 10, 2010 at 1706 hrs
TFG…Once again, the unintended consequences are far worse and far more frequent occurring than the original problem.
That remains to be seen. I suspect that there may a few cases early on where people bitch about it, but the airlines will ultimately adjust schedules to prevent too many cancelled flights. The know which airports are the worst for that. Will it mean higher fares? Sure; but I don’t really care. (just being honest)
Scott… Agreed. Anything within six hours driving time is now a better option to drive (in terms of total time wasted dealing with airports and airlines). The cost perspective is dependent on the car’s fuel economy and number of passengers. My wife and I only fly to Vegas (from San Diego) when tickets are below $45 on Southwest. Otherwise it’s cheaper to drive, and we get there in the same amount of time.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 10, 2010 at 1717 hrs
@ David: While I suspect it won’t happen everytime, airlines will quickly learn not to get burned on the hot stove… even if that means problems for passengers. You may have a delay for fog that might have caused four or five hour back-ups turn into mass cancellations… in fact, that WILL happen because the airline isn’t allowed by law to let you wait.
If they cancel the flights, they have the responsibility to find a replacement ride for their customers.
And that might be tomorrow. “Yes sir, we could have simply waited another hour and taken off, but the Obama administration would prefer that you don’t feel discomfort on the plane… it’s better that you find a nice hotel and fly out tomorrow.” Isn’t that a better solution?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 10, 2010 at 1759 hrs
I actually agree with scott. I also agree with a pilot friend of mine who says, “Flying will never be safe as long as you have to drive to the airport.”
I guess I’d rather have my flight canceled then have to go through an American flight I was on that took eleven hours to go from ELP to DFW. Nine hours total tarmac time in ELP and ABI. Capt. Jim Morrison had 50 Godfathers pizza’s delivered to us in ABI and put it on his charge card. Of course they had to be X-ray’ed so they were nice and cold by the time we got them.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 10, 2010 at 1807 hrs
TFG,
Yes, some airlines will try the game you insist will happen. It will cost them. Passengers will quickly refuse to book on airlines that treat them like cattle.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 10, 2010 at 1831 hrs
Glad to find some agreement on this one. It’s common sense, people! If you board people onto your plane, but find you can’t take off, at some point you have to let them get off. You can’t hold people prisoner on the aircraft for goodness sakes.
if that means the flight’s canceled, then it’s canceled. If that means someone figures out how to reboard people four hours later when the flight’s ready to go, good on them. I’m sure they’ll enjoy more support from their customers than the canceled ones do. But irregardless, you can’t hold people on an airplane for hours and hours just sitting there. Anyone who thinks that’s ok to do should have their head examined. As I said, common frickin’ sense.
Posted by scott on March 10, 2010 at 1839 hrs
Try what game? If they can’t take off in a very short time, they have no option to wait… nor to ask your opinion of the matter. They cancel, or they get fined.
Which airline do YOU plan on using that never has to wait in the event of a problem, or bad weather back-ups. Please, enlighten us all to this passenger friendly airline with the German level of impeccable promptness that is willing to spend $27,500 per passenger just to make you happy, FL?
Like I said… the hopey-changy ones will blame the airlines, expect perfection, and ignore the problems that meddling bureaucrats have inflicted on us with their benevolent oversight.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 10, 2010 at 1842 hrs
They should advise the passengers and let those off that want off, and issue a refund.
Posted by Jack Lohman on March 11, 2010 at 0904 hrs
Here are 3 tables that reflect the number of flights that are actually might be affected by this law, it uses airlines, airports and months of the year as one of the variables.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-12-21-tarmac-strandings-limit-3-hours_N.htm
As you can see it is a relatively small % compared to the number of flights that the airlines already cancel for one reason or another.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 11, 2010 at 0932 hrs
They cancel, or they get fined.
No. The sensible ones will allow their passengers to disembark and reboard when they are allowed to leave. No airline ever had to hold their passengers hostage for hours. I’m sorry you have such a low opinion of the ability of airlines to make sensible decisions. Of course, I agree with you that they don’t act like they know what they are doing.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 11, 2010 at 1011 hrs
Yes, waiting on a plane is not much fun. But the heavy handed rule by meddling politicians who don’t know what they’re doing lacks the flexibility needed to be at all helpful. It’s like zero tolerance rules that expel a kid because her grandmother sent a knife along with the birthday cake to school. With this ruling, passengers will sit for 2 and a half hours before having a flight canceled when they could have been in the air in another half hour or so. The only thing worse than waiting on a plane for 3-4 hours before finally taking off is waiting for 2+ hours, getting canceled, another night in a hotel away from home all to start over the next day. Some level of flexibility and discretion is needed and the huge fines for cases that don’t consider the specifics of the situation is idiotic.
There is a much better solution - that is just common sense which of course is why legislators would never have thought of it, let along actually implemented it. Why do airlines rush to get planes off the gates when they’re not sure if it will actually get up & in the air anytime soon? Because they want to keep their on time stats up. Simple solution? A federal agency, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics is responsible for setting the standards - they’re the ones that set how “on time” departures & arrivals are determined. They can change it so that either departure time is determined by when the plane actually takes off (rather than when it pushes away from the gate) or make it so departures that wait more than a certain length of time before taking off, regardless of when they leave the gate are disqualified from being “on time.”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on March 11, 2010 at 1029 hrs
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