By J. DeVoy
In a delightful smackdown of self-righteous and ignorant Americans who think they have a “right” to everything, including not being inconvenienced, American and Continental airlines will cancel flights rather than abide by new Federal regulations limiting the time flyers can spend sitting on a tarmac. Under the new regulations, airlines can be fined in excess of $27,000 per passenger if the plane is stuck on the tarmac for more than three hours. As the article points out, a delayed Boeing 757 can cost the airline more than $5 million in fines.
So, how does the traveling public that actually produces value feel about this?
Frequent flier Dave Wooldridge said he plans to punish airlines that cancel flights by taking his business elsewhere.
“I won’t fly that airline again,” he said. “They risk losing a lot of people if that’s what they become known for, canceling flights.”
Traveler Andrea Ramirez also didn’t agree with the airlines’ tactic.
“I would definitely rather be late than not go at all,” Ramirez said. “That’s for sure.”
Inconvenient as delays are, the people who squeal loudest about this likely don’t fly much. Such long delays are uncommon and, for frequent travelers, the inconvenience of a cancelled flight is greater than a delayed one.
“It’s unavoidable that more flights will be canceled to avoid fines,” said American Airlines spokesman Steve Schlachter. “It’s one of the unintended consequences of a bill that has no flexibility.”
PWN PWN PWN.
The entire notion of “rights” is suspect, but they do have consequences once defined. In this case, airlines have responded by cutting service rather than facing millions of dollars in liability. The incidents that fueled this regulation were few and far between, but lofty rhetoric like Barbara Boxer’s 2007 statement, “no one should be held hostage on an aircraft,” have brought us to this point. Hopefully these regulations are not long for the aviation world.
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My thought is this:
As I see it (which may not be how it ended up) is that the regulation is meant to stop people being trapped on airplane during a delay as opposed to be let off to wait in the airport terminal.
They’re looking to prevent this (quoted from the Boxer article above):
“The airline acknowledged that it hesitated nearly five hours before calling in shuttle buses to unload 10 jets that spent much of Wednesday sitting on runways at Kennedy Airport because of icy weather and gate congestion.”
I hate planes, they’re a necessary evil, but unless someone else is footing the bill and you’re flying business-class or above, coach sucks.
And being stuck in a coach seat for 10.5 hours would piss the fuck out of me — after a few hours, I’d have to wonder why am I on the tarmac and not inside in the sports bar — because we’re going to leave ANY MINUTE and it’ll take too long to round us all up and back on the plane? In that case, no, it was because the alternative — MAYBE someone slipping going down the steps — was deemed too risky by some dweeb as opposed to a reasonable person who is in the situation.
We are so afraid of losing our jobs or getting sued that we will not do reasonable things in reasonable times because of the fear of repercussions. Are employees so programmed that at some point someone can’t say “There’s a foot of ice on the ground, we’re not going anywhere for awhile, get these people off the plane.” Apparently, so.
I don’t care of you fly every day or once a year, 11 hours in coach is cruel and unusual… even moreso if those 11 hours are spent on the ground.
Tho, I’m with you on the notion of “rights” being a term so overtaxed it now encompasses anything that that we feel entitled to…
Perhaps I don’t fly enough, but How exactly are the airlines going to cancel flights here? As the previous poster pointed out this rule is just meant to keep people from sitting on the tarmac. The airline is free to keep you sitting at the gate as long as it wants.
So how does the airline know which flight should be cancelled? OR do they intend to pull the airplane back to the gate after 2:45 of waiting on the tarmac and then cancel the flight?
Honestly the cancelling flights rhetoric seems like a bluff. As you say waiting for 3 hours on the tarmac is a very rare event, So predicting this situation will be difficult for the airline unless they want to preemptively cancel a lot more flights which will also cost the airline extra money.
I see them taking the plane back to the gate from the tarmac and canceling it there. The article is light on details for how this would work. It seems like a remedy intended for frequently clogged airports like ORD, where the planes are at the gate, but there is a long lag between pushing back and takeoff.
Even if a bluff, it’s an effective way to twist the knife in people who wanted the time limit. It potentially will save millions of dollars in an industry that’s constantly losing money.
I guess I’d see the backlash of holding somebody trapped on a plane for 2 hrs and then bringing them back to the gate to cancel the flight solely to avoid a fine would be a PR nightmare.
Fines for this piss poor planning seem appropriate. Although, $27,000 per passenger seems a little crazy. Why not simply require the airline to compensate each passenger at say $250 per hour that they have to sit imprisoned in the plane on the tarmac? Then, the airline can simply make a cost-benefit decision as to whether the passengers should have to sit in the tube on the runway, or to bring them back to the gate?
Why not simply require the airline to compensate each passenger at say $250 per hour that they have to sit imprisoned in the plane on the tarmac?
Because that requires thought and analysis, as well as industry input, and is incompatible with the knee-jerk reaction demanded by soccer moms who fear this happening to them the one time a decade they take to the air, which spawned this bill. Also, $100/hour would be sufficient. I’d feel princely at that rate.
Also, that would compensate actual victims, rather than the general fund.
What hoses me about the government stepping in to ‘solve’ this problem is that they largely created it. You guys run the FAA and the TSA, remember? Direct them to change the rules that create the operational rigidity that leads to these situations. If they want to they can let planes return to the gate and still keep one foot in the line.
Here’s the problem, Airlines and the TSA are both run by incompetent flunkies.
Incompetent flunkies are why people are left on tarmacs for more than a single hour at a time.
If nobody has to pay, then nobody has incentive to pull their heads out of their flunky asses.
Hmm I’d think it is slightly more than incompetence. I’d suspect a little deviousness as well. If the airplane has to return to the gate the Pilot has the opportunity to get off the plane as well. If the pilot gets off then he isn’t allowed to work the flight if it would put him over his safety limit. Keeping the pilot on the airplane allows him to continue the flight.
If I were to guess the airline wouldn’t mind letting passengers off if they could get the pilot union/FAA to allow the original pilot to still fly the plane. Of course those safety rules may be there for a reason.
My company certainly bills me out at more than $100/hr and that is for work I enjoy doing. So I’d be inclined to agree with the $250 figure.
The only time this happened to me, some knucklehead cut the main power lines into the NE control center with an ax, on purpose, as a contractor. Hard to blame the airlines for that SNAFU. As to reanimating Ayn Ran (in the title), have you seen the poster on I95 south in South Carolina: “Where is John Galt?” I damned near crashed the car trying to turn around and see if anyone was taking credit for the ad.
What practical difference is there to the passenger between a flight that’s cancelled and a flight that’s delayed for three (or more) hours?
Have you ever spent three hours in a 737/ DC8 like they used at La Guardia with no food, no water, and the bathrooms all closed because they are overflowing?
That’s the main difference. But in my case, it was not a scheduling problem by the airplanes, but a contractor who shut down NE Central. After we pulled away, a landing plane took our spot. There was no cure, except waiting.
How is there no cure? Bring a set of stairs over to the plane, let everyone off, and walk them over to the terminal where there is food, water, and a place to take a piss.
I meant in terms of impact to your schedule and ability to get to your destination. If they cancel your flight vs delay it for three hours, you’re basically looking at the same deal. You’ll be departing from the airport at a different time, will likely miss your connection, and will get in later than you otherwise would have.
What the airlines seem to be saying is “Well then, if we suspect that we won’t be able to take off within three hours of boarding, I guess we’re just going to cancel the flight! So there! See how you like that!”
Um, thank you? I just don’t see the “gotcha” in this…
Marc,
As to your first, we were probably more than a mile from the gate, all of which is secure territory. We were actually near to one end of the primary runway in a holding spot. Maybe buses, but this was Friday afternoon in NY – no where near enough. As to your second comment, did not mean to imply there was a “gotcha” there. Other than the entire air traffic control system being so fragile that one worker could cut one power line and bring down the entire East Coast.
—Mike
You do have a “right” not to be “held hostage” by these folks — which is a pretty apt description in my opinion.
If I told someone I’d give ‘em a two-hour ride in my car for a couple hundred bucks and then, when they got in, I drove five feet and just sat at the curb for three-plus hours, with all the doors locked, the windows rolled up, my seat pushed all the way back to crush their knees, wouldn’t even give them a drink from the cooler I had up front, wouldn’t turn on the AC that I had, and refused to let them out, they’d lock me up like a loony.
But the airlines do (or did) it with impunity. And if you demanded to get off, they’d probably have homeland security waiting for you. This is not about “inconvenience” its about being total douchebags with other people’s time and lives. Yeah, make ‘em pay for our “inconveniences,” and lets see if its still really such a necessity for them to make you wait hours on the tarmac instead of in the airport. What, did they not realize there was 3 feet of snow and 45 planes ahead of them on the runway when they boarded the plane? Or, can’t they put those little pull-tab-number-thingies they have in delis in the airport so they can remember which order the planes are supposed to go out in? Fuck them.