Should Runway Delay Penalties Become Law?

By Author: Steve Robinson
Total Articles: 467
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Unfortunately no matter how cheap the price of cheap airplane tickets or cheap vacation packages, nothing can assuage the frustration passengers endure when they are forced to sit endlessly on a runway not knowing when, or if, their plane will ultimately take off.

To stop such practices, the Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a rule in April of 2010 that holds airlines liable to pay fines of as much as $27,500 per passenger against any airline that leaves a plane sitting on a runway for over three hours for domestic flights and over four hour for international flights.

This new rule resulted in extended runway delays declining by well over 90 percent. However the DOT has yet to impose anywhere close to maximum fines for any runway delays since its rule was imposed. In fact the first runway fine of $900,000 was announced in November against American Eagle for runway delays at Chicago’s O’Hare airport during thunderstorms in May.

Now FlyersRights, a consumer group, has joined a member of the House urging Congress to penalize airlines for lengthy runway delays as part of pending legislation ...
... governing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Representative Mike Thompson of California and the head of FlyersRights organization believe that it is critical that the FAA bill include the runway rule so that the Transportation Department is not able to unilaterally decide to rescind it sometime in the future. The congressman observed that it is a lot more difficult to change a law than change a DOT rule.

Currently the Senate version of the FAA bill would legislate a three hour runway delay rule but the House version does not. Lawmakers are expected to start negations shortly to arrive at a compromise FAA bill.
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