New USA flight delay rules

[Darren Wheeler]

CBS news Video clip

Provide food/water and working toilets after 2 hours waiting
De-plane after three hours of waiting.
Fines of $27,500 per passenger [:o]

Unsurprisingly, the airlines are bemoaning the rules [ii]

[Scrooge]

Here is the problem, how are they going to deplane them ?

What I mean is, 99.99% of the time it's a weather delay, the terminals are full, your stuck on a taxi way and no way to move from there.

Or of course this could force the airlines to stop flying RJ's into places like JFK/EWR and up gauge to something bigger, of course then people will complain about the lack of flights in some cities.

What I can never understand is if its a weather delay why the airline even let them board knowing that the plane won't be going anywhere. I've heard in the past from people that they won't let you get off and won't let you have food and also won't turn on the iflight entertainment - personally I would be really annoyed if this happened.

quote:Originally posted by Dave2009
What I can never understand is if its a weather delay why the airline even let them board knowing that the plane won't be going anywhere. I've heard in the past from people that they won't let you get off and won't let you have food and also won't turn on the iflight entertainment - personally I would be really annoyed if this happened.


They want the gate for another aircraft usually.

The problem here is that a simple rule, aimed at resolving a quite serious problem, has so many potentialities itself that it could become a nuisance. What happens, people are asking, if you get on the plane, a thunderstorm comes over, delays take off, you get in the runway queue then the pilot realises the new take off time is 3hrs 2mins past departure? According to the rule, it's back to the gate or fined, but people wouldn't want that.

On the other hand there was a cause celebre in the US recently when a regional jet headed to Minneapolis was diverted to Rochester (I think) then no one (airline, airport, crew) allowed the passengers off for over twelve hours as the airport shut down around them. Massive incompetence on all parts, which this new rule is intended to resolve.

Yet airlines are up in arms, they won't admit to their failings, fix problems themselves, get 'injuncted' then moan.