[Infowarrior] - Gov't imposes 3-hour limit on tarmac strandings

[Richard Forno]

Gov't imposes 3-hour limit on tarmac strandings
By JOAN LOWY
The Associated Press
Monday, December 21, 2009; 11:41 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/21/AR2009122101607_pf.html
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration took aim Monday at tarmac  
horror stories, ordering airlines to let passengers stuck in stranded  
airplanes to disembark after three hours.

With its new regulations, the Transportation Department sent an  
unequivocal message on the eve of the busy holiday travel season:  
Don't hold travelers hostage to delayed flights.

Under the new regulations, airlines operating domestic flights will be  
able only to keep passengers on board for three hours before they must  
be allowed to disembark a delayed flight. The regulation provides  
exceptions only for safety or security or if air traffic control  
advises the pilot in command that returning to the terminal would  
disrupt airport operations.

U.S. carriers operating international flights departing from or  
arriving in the United States must specify, in advance, their own time  
limits for deplaning passengers. Foreign carriers are not covered by  
the rules.

Airlines will be required to provide food and water for passengers  
within two hours of a plane being delayed on a tarmac, and to maintain  
operable lavatories. They must also provide passengers with medical  
attention when necessary.

 From January to June this year, 613 planes were delayed on tarmacs  
for more than three hours, their passengers kept on board.

Airlines will also be prohibited from scheduling chronically delayed  
flights. Carriers who fail to comply could face government enforcement  
action for using unfair or deceptive trade practices.

The new regulations, which were published Monday in the Federal  
Register, go into effect in 120 days.

"Airline passengers have rights, and these new rules will require  
airlines to live up to their obligation to treat their customers  
fairly," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement.

Under the new regulations, airlines would be fined $27,500 per  
passenger for each violation of the three-hour limit, LaHood said.

LaHood called the new regulations the Obama administration's  
"passenger bill of rights."

Legislation pending in the Senate would also have imposed a three-hour  
limit, but the new regulations go even farther, giving passenger  
rights advocates nearly everything they've been asking for.

Airlines have strongly opposed a hard time limit on tarmac strandings.  
They say forcing planes to return to gates so that passengers can get  
off could cause more problems than it cures. They predict more flights  
will be canceled, further delaying passengers from reaching their  
destinations.

Last month, the department fined Continental Airlines, ExpressJet  
Airlines and Mesaba Airlines $175,000 for their roles in a nearly six- 
hour tarmac delay in Rochester, Minn. On Aug. 8, Continental Express  
Flight 2816 en route to Minneapolis was diverted to Rochester due to  
thunderstorms. Forty-seven passengers were kept overnight in a cramped  
plane amid crying babies and a smelly toilet because Mesaba employees  
refused to open a gate so that they could enter the closed airport  
terminal.

The case marked the first time the department had fined an airline for  
actions involving a tarmac delay. Transportation officials made clear  
the case was a warning to the industry.

Consumer advocates have been pressing the department and Congress for  
at least a decade to do something extended tarmac delays. However,  
past efforts to address the problem have fizzled in the face of  
industry opposition and promises to reform.

Congress and the Clinton administration tried act after a January 1999  
blizzard kept Northwest Airlines planes on the ground in Detroit,  
trapping passengers for seven hours. Some new regulations were put in  
place but most proposals died, including one that airlines pay  
passengers who are kept waiting on a runway for more than two hours.

The Bush administration and Congress returned to the issue three years  
ago after several high-profile strandings.

In December 2006, lightning storms and a tornado warning shut the  
Dallas-Fort Worth airport, causing American Airlines to divert more  
than 100 flights and stranding passengers on some planes for as long  
as nine hours.

Two months later, snow and ice led JetBlue Airways to leave planes  
full of passengers sitting on the tarmac at New York's Kennedy  
International Airport for nearly 11 hours.

After those incidents, DOT Inspector General Calvin Scovel recommended  
that airlines be required to set a limit on the time passengers have  
to wait out travel delays grounded inside an airplane.

Mary Peters, who was transportation secretary under former President  
George W. Bush, proposed requiring airlines to have contingency plans  
for stranded passengers. The idea was that if airlines include these  
plans in their "contract of carriage" - the fine print on an airline  
ticket - consumers can hold them responsible in court if they break  
their promise.

An industry-dominated panel set up by the government debated the  
matter for 11 months, then issued a report in November 2008 that  
offered only guidelines for what a model plan should look like.

Neither those guidelines nor Peters' proposed rule contained a  
specific limit on how long passengers can be kept waiting before being  
allowed to return to a gate. They were denounced as toothless by  
consumer advocates.

LaHood has rewritten Peters' proposal, added a firm time-limit and  
other protections, and made the proposal a final rule.

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On the Net:

Department of Transportationhttp://www.dot.gov

Air Transport Associationhttp://www.airlines.org