A week ago I had to fly to West Palm Beach, Fla., from Philadelphia. Moments after leaving the gate, our captain told us there would be “at least a half hour” delay. Unknown to us, a few minutes before we left the gate, US Airways Express flight 4551 “successfully crashed” on runway 27L.
At about noon, the plane skidded down the runway on its nose and eventually came to a halt and blocked the runway most of the afternoon. There was no fire, and no one in the plane was injured.
I stopped counting after tallying 50 planes in the takeoff queue as we taxied past the crashed plane. We took off about an hour late. Many of the flights at Philadelphia later that afternoon were delayed in the air and on the tarmac for three hours or more.
That got me thinking about delays.
The Coalition for an Airline Passengers Bill of Rights (CAPBOR) has proposed the Federal Aviation Adminiatration:
Establish procedures for returning passengers to the terminal gate when delays occur so that no plane sits on the tarmac for longer than three hours without connecting to a gate.
I wonder that if a senator or two would have been in those delayed aircraft last week, it wouldn’t have spurred them to push Congress to finally pass legislation to create an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights.
Unfortunately, after nearly a year the federal task force, directed to determine how to assist passengers delayed for hours aboard planes parked on tarmacs, recently finalized its recommendations with none requiring airlines and airports to do anything about the problem.
Kate Hanni, a task force member and Executive Director of CAPBOR said,
We were hoping at a bare minimum to come out of this task force with a definition of what is an extensive on ground delay, but that didn’t happen because the airline industry doesn’t want anything that is remotely enforceable.
I disagree with Ms. Hanni. I think the airline industry is ready to accept reasonable rules in case of serious airport delays. The problem is, without modifications to current FAA regulations, a Passengers Bill of Rights requiring a return to the gate after 3 hours on the tarmac, for example, could cost the airlines dearly.
The FAA’s “8/16″ rule permits pilots a total work day of 16 hours, but only eight hours at an airplane’s controls. The rule is designed to prevent fatigued pilots from flying planes. A pilot can’t start a new flight which would push the pilot to be over eight hours in the cockpit, but pilots can continue a delayed flight up to 16 hours. If the plane returns to the gate, the 8 hour limit is in effect, but if it stays on the tarmac, it’s the 16 hour limit in force. I don’t think that makes sense.
The FAA places a flight in the takeoff queue when it leaves the gate. If you return to the gate you loose your takeoff queue position.
A few winters ago a cousin was flying from JFK to LAX, a 5½ hour flight. The weather was rotten, and the ground delay about 4 hours. If CAPBOR’s 3 hour rule was in effect, instead of remaining on the tarmac, the plane would have returned to the gate and started this chain of events:
- The plane returning to the gate puts the 8 hour limit in effect.
- The total of a 3 hour delay and a 5½ hour flight time is over 8 hours and means a new flight crew is needed.
- Since it’s too expense to have substitute flight crews at the airport, a crew would have to be called in, delaying the flight more, and doubling flight crew costs.
- When the plane left the gate again, it would be at the back of the takeoff queue, opening the very real possibility that the whole nightmare could be repeated anew.
I think CAPBOR has it about right with their proposed three-hour rule, but for that rule to work for the commercial airline industry, modifications must be made to the FAA’s “8/16,” and takeoff queue position rules.
If these rules were modified, I think the airlines would be ready to accept new rules protecting passengers’ well-being, including a rule requiring a return to the gate in case of an extensive ground delay. The underlying situation concerning extensive ground delays is complex and needs a solution which takes into account the interconnection of a host of factors.
Hopefully the next Congress and the Obama administration will be up to the challenge of resolving these factors into workable legislation.
