Why is it legal to keep passengers waiting on the tarmac more than five hours?

by Christopher Elliott on July 10, 2009

tarmac delays
Can you think of a good reason to hold a flight on the tarmac for more than five hours? I can’t.

But the passengers on Mesa Airlines flight 7262 from Washington Dulles to Rochester, NY, on May 29 may well be wondering. According to the Transportation Department, they waited 311 minutes before their flight was canceled and returned to the gate.

A look at the other most-delayed flight shows the the folks on Mesa 7262 were in good company. Two other Mesa flights make the top-five list, along with a Delta Air Lines and American Eagle flight.

The airline apologists among you will look up the weather forecasts for May 29 and, I’m sure, find a perfectly good reason for a delay.

But five hours? Come on.

That shouldn’t be legal.

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Tagged as: air travel, Delay, DOT, Tarmac

  • Matthew from NYC

    I agree. Five hours on an airliner is bad enough, but when it’s not going anywhere it’s even worse. I don’t think they should be allowed to board the aircraft unless they have a firm take off and landing slot. Granted that in the forty-five minutes it takes to load and taxi, things can change, but five hours is ridiculous. They should have been sent back to the terminal after 60 minutes.

  • http://www.tripso.com/today/government-releases-tarmac-delay-data-suggests-expressjet-is-anything-but/ jeff

    In hindsight it is easy to criticize the airlines for lengthy waits. In reality, however, had the airline known in advance how long the wait would be, I feel confident that they, too, would not elect to make passengers suffer.

    The problem is that the waits are incremental. In the interest of their passengers, pilots don’t want to lose their place in the take-off line, so that they can get passengers where they want to go as promptly as conditions (weather, air traffic) allow. When they are first told the wait may be 30-40 minutes, the decision to stay makes sense. When an update then tells them it will be another 30 minutes, the decision is again logical. Only after multiple incremental extensions does it become obvious (IN HINDSIGHT) that previous logical decisions weren’t the best choice.

    What would you do with the imperfect information that is available for such decisions?

    The one improvement airlines can make is to address concurrent failures (bathrooms out of order, no food or liquids). They should be obliged to provide emergency food and water on extended delays. And if bathrooms are failing, a return to the terminal (with loss of one’s place in line) might be a better choice.

  • http://www.ffocus.org Bruce InCharlotte

    The airlines keep insisting that they have this under control and that they can handle this with in-house programs. As we can see, they do not. The continue to take advantage of a weak system of oversight and short-term memory press (present company excluded, of course).

    It is time for a federal regulation to REQUIRE the airlines to comply with logical guidelines, such as providing water and sanitary facilities, and the like, as suggested by Kate Hanni and her Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights.

    Quit stalling, Congress!

  • Robert

    I would also fault air traffic control. They can order an aircraft off the Tarmac back to a gate if there are passengers on it.

  • John

    How about the airlines restructure their pay system? FAs and Pilots start getting paid when they close the door and taxi away from the gate.

    Its in their best interest to hold us hostage on the tarmac because their getting paid 10 to 20 times what they get paid during a gate hold. Their “legal hours” clock also starts further reinforcing why they would do it.

  • jlawrence01

    Mesa Air only flies smaller planes. Do they even have lavoratories?

    Five hours on one of those planes would give you claustrophobia.

  • http://www.isitlegalto.com airline law

    keeping one locked on an aircraft for so long should not be legal. this is confinement in an aluminum cylinder. you bought the ticket to get somewhere with the expectation that it would be timely. i think there is a strong argument that this is not legal.

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