The ruling, touted as a “miracle on the tarmac,” by USA Today, will take effect in April 2010 and will require airlines to let passengers deplane domestic flights after three hours of delay, and also requires airlines to provide food and water after two hours. Sounds great, huh?
To make sure the airlines realize the government folks are serious, they’ve included a clause that will levy fines of up to $27,500 per passenger so, since most planes carry 100 to 200 passengers and most delays involve entire airports, if not multiples (New York weather effects Kennedy, La Guardia, Newark, sometimes Boston and Philadelphia) we could have the national debt lowered significantly by just one bad winter.
I’ll give you an example and let you do the math because the staggering number of zeros makes me very sad. My longest delay was four hours on the Newark tarmac. I was stuck with 150 passengers and 82 other aircraft all waiting in line for the weather to clear. Try 150 times 80 times $27,000 (we’re going for a rough estimate since that seems to be the way the government works), and then add in another 100 flights as a guesstimate for the delays at the surrounding airports.
I’m pretty sure my company doesn’t have that amount of spare change (if they do, I’m going to be even more upset about not having a raise in over seven years), so it shouldn’t take too long before the industry will be asking the government for a bailout so they can pay the government the fines they owe.
Why, you ask, wouldn’t the planes just go back to the gate to let the people off and simply avoid the fines? The Department of Transportation employees must all travel in private planes that come complete with retractable stairs so it didn’t occur to them to ask. That’s the only way I can think they would be unaware of “ladies and gentlemen, our gate is currently occupied and there aren’t any open ones so we’ll be holding here for awhile” announcements that are prevalent in air travel.
If there aren’t enough gates for every day delays (mechanicals, late arriving crews, etc.), just where will we park the mass delays? Planes aren’t like trains. One doesn’t just pull up, let everyone off and then move on down the track.
The reality of extended aircraft delays is much like a traffic jam. Just because you have a meeting you really, really need to get to doesn’t mean all the cars in front of you are going to move to the side so you can slide past. Planes, like cars, can’t drive on the grass/median. They can’t turn around when stuck in a line of traffic.
So, pretty much every plane in line will need to return to the gate to avoid the $27,500 per person fine. Since the gate will be occupied with planes that aren’t about to let passengers board knowing they can’t take off until the weather clears, the only option would be to park somewhere near a gate, bring up airstairs and ask everyone to deplane into whatever weather is causing the delay, run across whatever amount of slush/snow/rain puddles stands between them and the terminal and then climb the outside stairs to gain entrance to the terminal.
And, that’s not the bad part of the good news. Sending people down slippery steps in inclement weather would just invite all sorts of lawsuits (I caught a cold and it’s your fault), so I think, airlines will simply cancel flights. They can’t be fined if the flight doesn’t go. They can’t be required to serve non-existent food (I’m not even going to address that ridiculous rule) if the flight is canceled.
They will have to deal with getting the passengers and crews to their destination at a later time by squishing them into the flights that do operate. If, of course, they can find flight crews who haven’t timed out (another, way better ruling restricts the number of hours crew members can work) because, rather than waiting on the runway ready to take off, they are now waiting for a gate to board the passengers to get in line to wait to take off.
The good news, I guess, is you’re reading this column so you’ll be prepared, and the bad news is that making a law doesn’t make it good.
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