Airlines To Cancel Flights
 

Hoorah!!! We really showed those airlines...no more 3 hour tarmac delays!! Your flight may be cancelled with no open flights for days, but hey....at least your not sitting on the tarmac! :)


Airlines are pushing back against new rules that give fliers more rights.

They are threatening to cancel scores of flights in response to a new rule that would prohibit airlines from keeping passengers on the tarmac for more than three hours without giving travelers the opportunity to get off the plane. As of April 29, carriers that break the rule would face steep fines of up to $27,500 per passenger, or more than $4 million on a full Boeing 737 or Airbus A320.

Carriers say that to avoid those fines, they will aggressively cancel flights before and during storms—even if the bad weather never materializes. The threats could foreshadow significant changes in air travel, making it even less reliable for millions of road warriors and vacationers. By canceling flights, it could take days for all travelers to get home when storms strike.

Of course, the warnings from carriers could simply be posturing to pressure the government into leniency. Passenger-rights advocates say airlines are trying to scare fliers. And the Department of Transportation says carriers have a lot of other options to avoid fines.

Still, on Tuesday, Continental Airlines Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Smisek threw down the gauntlet, calling DOT's rule "stupid." Even though many passengers will risk long delays to get where they are going, "the government by God says, 'We're going to fine you $27,500,'" he said at an investor conference in New York. "Here's what we're going to do: We're going to cancel the flight."

Other airlines have also raised warning flags. Both jetBlue Airways Corp. and Delta Air Lines Inc. have asked the DOT for waivers from the new rules at New York's Kennedy International Airport, where the longest runway is currently closed for resurfacing, adding to delays at one of the nation's most-congested airports.

Airlines have already shown that they are willing to aggressively cancel flights. Amid record snow storms—and in anticipation of the new rules—airlines canceled 34,588 flights in February, nearly four times as many as were canceled in February 2009, according to FlightStats.com. That meant some travelers who might have been able to fly ended up stuck for several days before empty seats opened up for them on other flights.

"This is real," said James May, chief executive of the Air Transport Association, an airline industry group that lobbied against the tarmac delay limit. "It's hard to predict right now how significant it's going to be, but I don't think there is any question we'll see significantly more flights canceled because no one wants to subject their company to those fines."

The DOT won't comment on airline motives, but in a statement, spokesman Bill Mosley said airlines have options other than resorting to large-scale flight cancellations.

"Carriers have it within their power to schedule their flights more realistically, to have spare aircraft and crews available to avoid cancellations, to ensure that their crews do not come up against flight and duty time limitations when tarmac delays occur, and to place passengers on other carriers' flights when flights must be cancelled for whatever reason," Mr. Mosley said. Travelers can always switch airlines if one carrier starts canceling too often, he adds.

Different airlines have always had different philosophies on handling severe weather, with some aggressively canceling all the time with stormy forecasts and others trying to operate every flight possible regardless of how late those trips might run.

Some carriers believe that canceling quickly offers customers more predictability, allowing them to stay home or hunker down in hotel rooms rather than wait (or sleep) at an airport. And those that try to wait out bad weather and operate as many flights as possible believe customers prefer airlines that make every effort to get you where you want to go, even if it means middle-of-the-night arrivals.

But each strategy has its risks. Delta, for example, was criticized for cancelling flights out of New Orleans early before Hurricane Katrina, leaving customers stranded at the airport for the storm. Delta still maintains early cancellations are preferred by customers, and the airline canceled flights aggressively ahead of this winter's storms.

On the other hand, jetBlue, which used to avoid cancellations to an extreme, found itself in a mess in 2007 when a Valentine's Day ice storm left planes piled up for hours and hours at JFK, passengers stuck in horrid conditions.

Last year, Continental had the lowest percentage of canceled flights among major airlines, at 0.5% of departures, according to FlightStats, a flight-tracking service. UAL Corp.'s United Airlines had the highest cancellation rate among major carriers at 1.6%—more than three times as high as Continental.

The three-hour limit doesn't mean flights must be canceled at three hours or face fines, just that airlines and airports have to find a way to get people off of an airplane if they want off. That can mean returning to a gate to unload passengers or rolling up a staircase and busing passengers back to terminals. Pilots have to agree that it's safe to unload people and air-traffic controllers have to agree that it wouldn't be disruptive to operations-both major caveats likely to limit disruption from the new rule.

Getting people off flights can be a major disruption for airlines and airports. One major penalty: Air-traffic controllers take flights first-come, first-serve, forcing them into long lines and punishing them for leaving the line and returning to a terminal. And sometimes when flights return to a gate pilots become ineligible under federal duty rules to continue that trip.

Procedures like returning to gates or using portable stairs and buses are uncommon in the U.S. (Remote parking and busing passengers is far more common in Europe.) But airports and airlines are working on new procedures and options for flights that face long delays, including more buses, stairs and reserving gates for quickly unloading customers.

"People will make adjustments and it will settle down," said James Crites, executive vice president at Dallas Fort-Worth International Airport. "In the end, it will be less than what you are hearing now. The industry is very adaptable. We will find a way to make it work."

Mr. Crites notes that while some 900 flights were stuck sitting for more than three hours last year, it's the rare exception of exceedingly long eight- and 10-hour ordeals that gets the most attention, with passengers seemingly locked up with little if any food, poor bathroom facilities and plenty of uncertainty.

A regional airline flight on behalf of Continental that was left sitting overnight last summer in Rochester, Minn., so outraged the DOT that it fined Continental, its partner ExpressJet Inc., and Delta, whose agent refused to open a gate for the stranded plane. That incident also moved the DOT to enact its new rule.

Mr. Crites says airports, like airlines, have been working to develop systems to track flights on the ground and raise alarms if they sit for long periods.

Kate Hanni became a passenger rights advocate, founded FlyersRights.org and pushed for the three-hour rule after being stranded for 10 hours on an American Airlines flight three years ago. She says travelers prefer cancellations to the uncertainty of being trapped on a stranded airplane or stranded at an airport halfway through their journey.

"We don't get complaints when people are stuck in airports, only when they are stuck on airplanes. It's better for airlines to pre-cancel," she said. "They are trying to scare everybody that canceling is some kind of horrific travel nightmare and it's not."

My airline is already preemptively canceling flights to avoid these penalties. The snow and ice storms which passed through the South this past winter were a prelude to the spring thunderstorm season. It's a good thing I have a laptop to keep me busy on the ground! http://www.airlinecrew.net/vbulletin...ies/cool_2.gif

The funny thing is that at Comair, we are trying to circumvent the new ruling. According to the latest internal memo, we may need to sit with pax on the airplane with the door open (hence not being out and the 3 hour clock not started) when the gate is congested.

So, pax are going to be stuck on airplanes for 4+ hours, but having it not count for the 3 hour rule. Just another example of the government having a knee jerk reaction, and having the companies try and circumvent the policy.

Will the crew be babysitting without pay then?

I'm all for showing congress what the "law of unintended consequences" is all about but what that suggests borders on malicious and deceitful. Besides sitting in my office for hours on end while not getting paid does not sound like something I'd be gung ho about anyway.

To the Politicians,
Fix the flocking airspace/atc system and most of these problems would not happen. Use at least 1/4 of the money you get from all the taxation you shovel onto the airlines for improving the NAS. Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Sure agree with you cal73 fix the atc and airspace system and we would eliminate many of these delays.

As far as sitting at the gate yes many airlines will do this however that is assuming you have gate space available to sit at.

I believe that is the idea management wants. I, however, won't be doing any babysitting and won't be forcing the FA to be a babysitter (at least not without pay)

From: US Govt
To: All US flag carriers

Memo: Now you're required to operate x amounts of flights each day out of Kxxx airport, and you will be fined $xx,xxx amount of dollars if you cancel because of the latest DOT rulings. If you operate such flights and your pax are stuck on the ground for more than 3:00, you will still be fined $27,500 for each pax. Oh, and by the way, we're not "regulating" US flag carrier, we're just making sure we're making our tax paying constituents are happy.

US Congress/Senate

I think the end result of this will be similar to what is going on a Kennedy now due to the closed runway. I bet airlines will push for taxi slot times and to delay boarding until they are sure departure can happen within say 2 hours at most. It will still result in cancellations when jets stack up at the gates, but if pax haven't boarded yet, the clock hasn't started.

Whole new sets of problems and by the wayside goes on time stats! The new black eye.

YMMV...Philly

Welcome to aviation in the 21st century
 

One must be careful about what one wishes for :D



Fred

If your not a fan of duty rigs - you should be!

The passengers complained because they were delayed, now they won't get there until the next day if they are lucky. Funny. I hope they are happy.

Love it! They cried and demanded Congress do something. Wonder what they come up with next....fines for cancelling?

A great example of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

I can't wait to see what happens if Congress passes CVR monitoring rules and anti-commuting rules. In the meantime, everyone should load up on Greyhound Lines stock.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...nd_UK_logo.png

It is a no-brainer, which is precisely why congress is incapable of finding any solution.

Idiot number zero... These 2 paragraphs are priceless.

Her theory is about to be tested. I can't wait to see all the glares we will be getting at the airport as we walk away from a perfectly good airplane on a perfectly good day on our way to go home... and they get to sleep on the floor at JFK. Yeah, that is MUCH better than arriving late at your destination..

Time to Spare? Go by Air!

So, the airlines figure they don't want to play given the rules congress shoved down their throats with the passenger protection legislation.

What should that tell pilots about what needs to be done on the subject of CVR access? Surely the airline management people will understand if we take our ball and go home.

And how do you propose we do that? Sit there in pure silence on EVERY flight? Press and hold the erase button? Pull the CVR breaker?

All that's going to do is get pilots in legal trouble for tampering with the CVR if they start to notice a trend.

Hi!

Why don't the airlines schedule their landings and takeoffs at each airport so there will be no landing/takeoff/gate access delays? Obviously, there is no controlling the WX, but if the airlines schedule 1000 movements at O'Hare between 1700-1900, and it can only accomodate 500 mvmts, delays will occur.

If I were gov't I would not allow more landings/takeoffs per hour, at any airport, than can be accomodated by ATC, the runways, taxiways and the gate availability. That would solve a huge chunk of the delay problems.

cliff
NBO

That can work for cargo....if you have all day, or night.

Since you mentioned ord I thought I would mention. A number of years ago both ual and amr did cut back many flights during a couple of peak times so the entire operations would work better for everyone at ord. They did this while working with the faa to improve operations at ord. Just so you know that same faa had all those slots(I know probably not the rght word) filled in less than 30 days by all the other airlines. Yes every last one. As far as weather I think atc tries to control it way too much. Many times having airliners sitting waiting when they could be leaving, yes even when we are asking them to let us go you get the same response from local control yes we agree with you but the flow control people still have the ground stop in effect. Hapens at iad all the time

I saw that passenger rights lady on CNN the other day. She was complaining about the airlines canceling so many flights due to weather. The anchor did not have much sympathy for her.

Love it! They sure showed us didnt they?

They did show us. I'm sure they will go after the airlines next because all the flights are full for a week as well as the hotels in the area. All I can say is have fun sleeping on the floor of airports......thats way better than sitting on a plane for 3 hours.

Lets not forget how we got here. Flight after flight sitting for 6 or more hours on the tarmac and in a recent event overnight in Rochester with no food. Captains need to step up and be Captains and go back to the gate. I for one would not have stayed all night in a RJ stuck on the tarmac in Rochester.

The problem is much bigger than crew. It is all related to deregulation. The Government used to strictly control routes to ensure the demand on infrastructure was not greater than capacity.

Also all this B.S. about modernizing ATC would help a little but would not solve the root cause, more operations than runway/gate space. The market pressure on airlines to cut cost while at the same time increase frequency to meet customer demand has caused the massive delay problems. To many small airplanes moving people around.

The article quoted is correct in the assertion the airlines could prevent cancelations by shifting operations to prevent high frequency operations, having more pilots and aircraft in reserve, however there is too much economic pressure to have the cheapest fair for these solutions to be viable.

I believe some price fixing by the government would be nice. A minimum CASM built into fairs would stabilize the industry. We would no longer be a greyhound with wings. It would also shrink the industry substantially. The idea that everyone should be able to afford airline travel is absurd. The traveling public are trying to have their cake and eat it too. If you want safe quality service without controllable delays it costs money. If you want affordable air travel you should remember to pack a pillow so that bench at the airport is more comfortable.

It sure does, the policy sounds specifically designed to circumvent the rules. It refers to it numerous times as upholding the "Customer Commitment". I guess that means the customers will need to be committed after they go crazy and riot when held at the gate for 2 hours.

Yes, unpaid babysitting.

I was at JFK when the Valentine's Day debacle happened in '07. A large part of the reason that people were stranded was the ramp areas were covered in ice and the jetways were unable to move. The ramps were so slick tugs were braking tow bars trying to push back airplanes to open up gates. The media blamed the airlines and there was some accountability but it wasn't a dereliction on the airline's part. Life happens. People forget that in our instant gratification life. This stupid rule just proves that the "law of unintended consequences" is alive and well.

No, they complained because they were locked up in a crowded, nasty( full toilets) tube without food or water for hours on end. The airlines had years and years to do something about it and they chose not to even address the issue.

So who do I blame when I'm stuck in my car on the interstate due to an accident?

Whoever you want, then sue them. It is the American way...





(sarcasm)

If your locked in your car and not allowed to leave it you can blame and sue me.

The funny part of what your saying is that when airlines had food people complained. When they didnt have food people complained. When the airline does anything people complain. Constant in the equation - people complain.

Im sorry but if you cant go three hours without food then maybe you have a problem. Im sure those people wanting food probably could stand to skip a meal here and there.

speaking of canceled flights, today in the NE. Wow... 6 hour delays at EWR and 5 hours at JFK.

Maybe you should change places with whoever is involved in the accident delaying everyone.

In many cases people have gotten stuck on an airplane because of poor decisions not their own.

Bingo! The average airline passenger won't think twice about dropping $150 on dinner, $80 on a movie, $200 on a sporting event, $400 on a smart phone, $200 on a pair of jeans, and I could go on and on and on. But come heck or high water they ARE NOT paying more then the lowest price to fly. Guess they value all those material things more then their and their families life. :rolleyes:

Wrong
 

In a few, rare, but well publicized cases people have gotten stuck on an airplane because of poor decisions ...

Things were a mess in the southeast yesterday and there were ripple effects. And there were passengers who sounded like Barney Fife hollering "citizens arrest, citizens arrest".

"Passengers Bill of Rights, Passengers Bill of Rights!!!"

No sir, the passengers Bill of Rights that you are referring to, is not yet in effect. Also you may have been in that seat for 4 hours but the door to the aircraft wasn't closed for 4 hours. Just because you board early does not mean the clock starts ticking. And you could have left the airplane during the first 2+ hour wait- the door was open. We did taxi and sit for an hour before returning to the gate but one hour isn't three hours. And screaming at the crew as you are exiting isn't gonna get you anything.

So now when the door is shut and we back away from the gate, do we have to include a PA that the stop watches can be started for the 3 hour limit?:o

That's correct. The rule doesn't take effect until April, and sitting in the airplane with a way for the passengers to exit does not consitute being on the airplane. As long as the MCD is open with a way to deplane, the clock is NOT ticking. ;)

Barney Fife, LOL! I can see it now. :p

It only takes one of your few and well publicized incidents to spark the outrage that led to the Passenger bill of rights. It will only take one or two more cases for the POB to revised to reflect new games as the airlines adjust and play them.

How about the airlines just keep me informed and let me know my options. I will then make my decision. Passenger Bill of Rights version 2.0 wont be necessary.