This April, the Department of Transportation created a rule that upset the aviation industry, and is now being analyzed for its effectiveness. The rule in question began on April 29, and was put in place to protect passengers’ rights by limiting the amount of time planes were allowed to hold them on the tarmac.
If any plane holds its passengers on the runway for a “lengthy” period of time (three hours or more) the airline will be fined $27,000 per passenger.
Kate Hanni, of FlyersRights.org supports the rule in favor of passenger rights, but a new study says that the move could actually be detrimental to travelers. The 113-page study, set in motion by Joshua Marks of Marks Aviation and Darryl Jenkins of The Airline Zone states that the DoT’s new regulation will most likely cause more public harm than good.
The research continues to say that the rule will probably cause 5,200 delays for more than 406,000 passengers and that approximately 113,441 passengers will spend an average of 3.65 hours delayed on the tarmac each year. Hanni questions the data and calls their analysis a mere “assumption.”
The study also says that 1.2 percent of scheduled flights (approximately 6,716) were canceled in May, which is more than the .9 percent (4,792 flights) from last year in May. The Transportation Department adds that this information is misleading, since May 2010’s record is average compared to the last 15 years.
Marks and Jenkins’ study also notes that since tarmac delays usually have more to do with weather and air congestion rather than airlines’ lack of organization, the rule seems misdirected.
So far, most airlines are complying with the rule, and the Government Accountability Office has said that it would need months of more data before drawing more conclusive results.
