Be Careful What You Wish For......

I have been reading a lot of comments from frequent flyers rejoicing the new "Three Hours and Back to the Gate" rule recently thrust upon the airline industry by the US Department of Transportation in response to some highly publicized events involving passengers being kept on planes for lengthy times.

The new rule basically states that airline companies must allow passengers to deplane if an on-ground delay exceeds three hours. In addition, the airline must provide snacks, water and sanitary conditions when delays pass two hours. Under the new regulations, the airlines would face a fine of $27,500 for EACH passenger that was inconvenienced in this way. On the surface, this sounds great, let's punish the bastards!

As one that would rather take a severe beating than spend hours sitting in an airplane on the ground going nowhere, I have to look at the unintended consequences of this new rule and who are the real bad-guys that cause these delays to happen, hint: it's not the airlines!

Airports with a finite number of gates, bad weather occurances, air traffic control congestion and security issues all contribute to air travel delays and the relatively small percentage of flights where passengers are held simmering on the tarmac for hours are unfortunately unavoidable. It comes with the territory and no amount of rules and fines on the end user-the airlines-are going to change that fact. The airlines are victims of the system as are the passengers.

Believe me, as an airline employee working in operations, a high priority is to minimize delays because they disrupt the rest of the system down the line. One flight delayed for a few hours for any reason screws the rest of the day due to connections, maintenance requirements and crew duty time limitations. Each day is efficiently planned with very small tolerances for outside influences and many things have to work right to accomplish the holy grail of on-time performance in a safe manner. All of this effort is made to provide our passengers what they bought the ticket for...to get from A to B within the expected time we promised.

I have read comments from what seem to be not-so-frequent flyers about how the evil airlines hold them "hostages" onboard during these delays. Nothing can be further than the truth! We WANT you off the plane at your destination, we WANT the next flight to depart on-time, the crew WANTS off the plane, they are hungry and tired too. To think airlines desire to keep passengers onboard any longer than is absolutely necessary is absurd. A plane that is not in the air is not generating revenue.

Imagine being aboard a flight from ATL-ORD, your plane is 23rd in line on the taxiway from departure. The three hour rule kicks in and the crew has to return to a gate to let you off. What if there is no gate available? Big problem, you will remain onboard until there is. Even if there is a gate, the time to deplane and reboard will be much longer than if the flight had remained in line for departure.

So the unintended consequences of this new ruling is that airlines will be cancelling more flights if there is a chance that outside influences will lead to a delay. This will ultimately lead to more passengers inconvenienced as the airline will seek to avoid the fines. As a passenger experiencing a delay, are you ready to resign yourself  to spending another night at your departure city because of the three hour rule or would you want the airline to keep trying to figure out a way to get you home? Less than 1% of the flying public has experienced more than a three hour delay on the ground, hardly a justification for this new misguided regulation from the DOT. Many more than that 1% will be negatively impacted by the law. Ticket prices to select problem destinations can conceivably rise in anticipation of the new fines. Everyone OK with that?

However, I agree that  passengers aboard an aircraft experiencing a long delay should expect at least basic services such as food, water and sanitary facilities. It is inexcusable for the airlines not to provide these as they know that long delays are possible at certain locations and in foul weather situations. This is an airline's responsibility to its customers to make them as comfortable as possible when things go sour. Every contingency cannot be forecast, but an effort must be made.

Airlines are a favorite target of consumer groups and regulators, but those people have to realize that we try to do the best we can in a very difficult and ever changing environment. Flying folks all over the world is a complex endeavor, it is not a perfect science and "shit happens" sometimes and everyone will not have a flawless experience

Note: there are some cool vintage aircraft in the photo at the top of this post!

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