I need a little help here from our airline brethren, of whom there are many reading AVweb. I’ve been parsing news stories about this week’s $900,000 fine against American Eagle for keeping passengers shut in airplanes on the ramp for more than three hours. DOT wanted to get the airlines’ attention and it sure did.Unfortunately, it could very well be that hapless airline passengers will be taking it in the shorts as a result. A recent Government Accountability Office report found the imposition of the rule a little over a year ago coincided with an unusual spike in flight cancellations. It other words, rather than strand passengers on the ramp and risk a fine, the airlines are just refusing to fly them at all. It’s as if the passengers are being thrown over the side in a spat between the airlines and DOT. At this point, the phrase “customer service” has long since faded into the distance. Passengers dwell in the Village of the Damned.Call me crazy, but can’t the airlines figure this out? For all you pilots and dispatchers, why is that an airline like Eagle would send 15 airplanes into O’Hare knowing full well the gates aren’t available and probably won’t be for hours? I understand that between weather, flight delays and schedules, this is a complex, dynamic environment. Sometimes, you have to launch airplanes on the come.But is it utterly unreasonable to expect the airline or the airport to have some means of extracting passengers stuck for hours on end? Are the TSA’s onerous regulations a factor? Is it block scheduling? The Jet Blue incident at Bradley last month-7 hours-was an especially egregious example. Personally, my record is 2 hours, which I can do standing on my head. Four hours? No thanks.So what should a passenger reasonably expect here? Educate me.
Ramp Delays: Educate Us
Key Takeaways:
- American Eagle received a $900,000 fine for keeping passengers on the tarmac for over three hours, highlighting a DOT regulation aimed at preventing such delays.
- A Government Accountability Office report indicates that the imposition of this rule has coincided with an increase in flight cancellations, as airlines opt to cancel flights rather than risk fines for tarmac delays.
- The author expresses frustration over airlines' inability to manage airport congestion and passenger extraction during delays, criticizing the apparent decline in customer service for passengers caught in this situation.
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