I recall DOZENS of instaces of this spanning YEARS prior to this, both heard of and directly experienced. This wasn't any anomoly, but indicative of a systematic faliure never properly dealt with.

At least they wont have to worry TOO much. With feeble fines like that, what's to worry about ?

Yes they are, but only by excessive cancellation thereby hosing the flying public even worse, although that didn't seem to occur here. Nothing was really solved, just allowed to SHIFT elsewhere. Again, one plane or several carriers affected by a significant event, WX or otherwise is one thing, but this was something ENTIRELY different.


A lot of airlines do, but this one frequently does not. As for absorbing a $650,000 fine (the remainder melting away in standard freebie's and vouchers to pax), yes, this one can.......at least until it's spun off.

Seems to me that this fine might have a negative effect on passengers. In my opinion, once other carriers start getting these fines(and they will), management is going to want to re-coup some of these losses. It may take a while, but I see things like this raising the ticket prices to compensate for the fines. Passengers are probably going to end up paying for this in the long run.

Should we start fining airlines for being in a hold over a city too long due to WX too?

Mother nature already does. We call it an all engine flame out :D

It's a system where the gate agents are assigned certain flights to work instead of a gate. So essentially you had agents running all over the airport to cover flights. The best part was that when flights got delayed, they rarely changed the agent working it, therefore no gate agent. Pure genius.

If they are jeapordizing health and safety and had reasonable alternatives (go to provisional airport and deal with the situation rather than hold for 2hrs with hope that wx might improve at the regular), then yes. There would probably need to be some other factors, but bottom line is that keeping people locked up in an airplane on the ground for hours on end is wrong. If this happens, the airlines should be prepared to deal with it, and not by just keeping them locked up. If they are not, then they are over-extended in terms of their abilities, infrastructure and service to the public, and they should not be offering so many flights in the first place. Maybe after a few of them go out of business then there won't be so much traffic? If you're going to complain that it's the FAA that needs to make more capacity, then please tell me how much you're donating to the cause.

To say that "we can't control the FAA, traffic, or weather" is a cop-out. Everyone knows you can't control those things, but if you are offering a service you better have the means to back it up when things do go wrong, rather than just saying "oh well, there's nothing we can do".

There are obvious health and safety issues with keeping people on a plane on the ground.

Or how about we start fining them on overdue rest rules. Lets see how many hours is it since it was suppose to be implemented.:rolleyes:

Health and safety issues are one thing, but assuming no one is a diabetic who packed their medication in their checked bags, you want us to just divert at the first sign of trouble?

So if given the chance to hold for a couple of hours or diverting to an airport where I may not be able to get the pax off the aircraft, I should take the diversion? Also, if I hold, I may be able to get the pax to their destination rather than putting them in some crappy outstation, you say I should opt for the outstation?

In my tiny little world, holding two hours may mean I get the pax to a hub. Diverting could mean I put them in an outstation that is 100 miles from the hub, but the way ATC works, could mean an additional several hours waiting for a departure clearance (the mainline would rather use a slot for a 73 than a Saab). Do you like the idea of overnighting it Armpit, Arkansas and losing a day off your trip rather than taking a hold?

So, oh wise one, you tell me what I am supposed to do.

But that's the whole issue, the support isn't there. I didn't say "divert at the first sign of trouble", I said holding for hours with additional complications (no food, bathrooms, diabetics, etc), whether it's in the air or on the ground. When a px buys a ticket, it's a contract, the company should deliver on that contract, or do the best they can and try to make up the difference. Holding on the ground for hours is just not acceptable. I'm glad the FAA is stepping in, and I don't care if some airlines get their toes stepped on. If the airline business model isn't flexible enough in terms of profit and operations to return to the gate or compensate passengers, someone needs to step in. It's cliche now, but at some point corporations no longer serve the public, they only function to serve their stockholders, which I think is a fundamental difference between corporations and non-incorporated businesses. So it goes back to what I said earlier, "if you can't do the right thing, someone has to step in and make you do it". If this raises ticket prices and drives away business, so be it, because we were operating under false pretenses before in terms of the actual cost of operating an airline.

Who's going to be the crew that declares an emergency, because they have passengers couped up for 3+hrs on the ground with no services? Who's going to be the first passenger to open up that emergency exit in the same situation? 3hrs may not be all that bad, compared to some of the worst occurances of this, but that's what we are trying to prevent hopefully. Everyone is going to have to work together on this, FAA, government, airlines, public, etc, but unless there's actually some sort of force pushing this to happen, I doubt it would improve on it's own.