Now that the tarmac delay rule is “working as planned” should the government shorten the leash?

That’s a question a lot of airline observers may be asking themselves after today’s DOT report (PDF) that there was just one tarmac delay exceeding three hours in August 2010.

And look at this chart (above). What point is reporting this data to the flying public when there’s no meaningful data to report?

The Transportation Department is doing a well-deserved victory lap on tarmac delays. In today’s news release, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood summed up his department’s reasons to celebrate:

These numbers show that the tarmac delay rule is protecting passengers from being trapped indefinitely aboard an airplane – with little or no increase in canceled flights.

Also, it shows that the hard work the airlines are putting into implementing the rule is paying off. With the summer travel season behind us, it appears that the rule is working as planned.


Now what?

Well, when I researched a story on tarmac delays a few weeks ago, Kevin Mitchell told me he saw no reason not to shorten the three-hour rule to two hours at some point. That’s an interesting idea.

Maybe that time is now.

At the very least, the government should start reporting two-hour tarmac delays in a meaningful way. The three-hour data is sort of irrelevant when there are only one or two flights a month that go over the limit.

Another area of interest: fines. If the rule is working as planned, shouldn’t the government be fining the airlines that go over the limit? Yet to the best of my knowledge, there have been no fines issued yet under the new three-hour rule.

What do you think? In a quick poll of more than 100 reader, most of you agree that two hours is better.

  • http://everything-everywhere.com Gary Arndt

    I still think fining airlines, and only airlines, for tarmac delays is fining the wrong people.

    No airline has a financial incentive to have a plan full of paying customers and salaried staff sit on a plan doing nothing. The extreme cases of planes sitting on a tarmak were due to airports not letting them get to a gate.

    The airports should be taking some responsibility as well.

  • Rachel

    Yeah…”shorten the leash.” Then passengers can suffer even higher fares and more canceled flights. It’s ignorant to think that these regulations don’t impose costs on the airline, and even more ignorant to think that those costs aren’t being passed on to you as a customer. I’d rather deal with a 1% chance of being stuck in a metal tube indefinitely than a 100% chance that my fares are going to increase (as they have). Thanks, over-regulators!

  • Liz

    You don’t include any numbers to show the frequency of tarmac delays between 2-3 hours, so there’s really no way to answer your question.

    Also, what the hay happened in June 2009?

  • Joe Farrell

    The real question to ask is:

    “How many flights were cancelled in the months shown?”

    This lets you compare cancellations to tarmac delays – and see if the people who whined the most about the rule [the airlines and their industry groups] were correct that they could cancel more flight instead of deal with the delays – i have NOT heard of any significant increase in cancelled flights- so – perhaps the operations departments are doing a better job at preventing long tarmac delays by keeping airplanes at the gate or getting them to a different gate sooner – either way- its better for the customers.

  • Bill

    The delays have gone down, but I think any more than an hour and a bit is too long.

    Rachel – speak for yourself.
    The fares have gone way down.
    I don’t want to be sitting on an airplane for hours on the tarmac. It shouldn’t increase fares all that much, but if it does, then it does. I think they kept them on the ground because two people would say they have to get to their meeting and the other 150 stayed silent. I don’t want to be on that tarmac for hours – period. I also don’t want airlines that are losing money. They need to all get their act together and be efficient.

  • Joe Farrell

    Bill – you have never been to JFK in the evening during the push to depart to Europe. You can push and sit in line for 120 min waiting to take off – no tarmac delay – just sitting in line waiting to go -

  • David Z

    I wonder how things will be come December. The past two Decembers had snowstorms galore.

  • jamru

    I agree with Joe that more data to understand the impact (if any) of the tarmac rule would be helpful, since the goal ideally should be more efficient operations overall, not just eliminating one problem to create another. That said, I tend to favor shortening the leash and would be willing to absorb some higher airfares if it meant more accurate flight schedules.

    Also @Joe, I deliberately avoid JFK for international flights because of the horror stories I’ve heard, but if the 120 takeoff wait was factored into the published flight time (i.e. it’s not a delay–the flight still lands on time in Europe) then I’m OK with it.