3 hours on the tarmac seems like a lot to me

"Robin Stober" schrieb

I am torn on this issue. The airlines have done some truly stupid things
in the recent past in regard to keeping passengers on planes for much too
long. But putting an arbitrary limit in place isn't the right idea,
either. How about just applying common sense? Nah, that can't work.

No, it obviously doesn't work - the airlines have done some stupid
things, as you said.

Do they risk a fine of $27,500 per passenger for taking off five minutes
after the three-hour limit? Or do they return to the terminal ...?

They would take off - who could return to the gate and debark the
plane in 5 minutes? So they are exceeding the limit anyway.

But I would be happier with the new rule if the airlines would
have pay the 27.500 each to the *passengers* and not to some
anonynous *somebody*
.....wouldn't we all just loooove long delays on the tarmac?

Jochen

In message Robin Stober
was claimed to have wrote:

Yes, it's easy to praise the new regulations. They seem to say, "No
delays greater than three hours." What they really say is that more
flights will be canceled. Delays happen. Arbitrary regulations often
cause more problems than they solve.

While true, common sense has been tried. And tried. And tried. Time
after time the airlines proved that they don't have common sense, so
arbitrary regulations are all that is left.

DevilsPGD wrote:
In Robin Stober
was claimed to have wrote:

Yes, it's easy to praise the new regulations. They seem to say, "No
delays greater than three hours." What they really say is that more
flights will be canceled. Delays happen. Arbitrary regulations often
cause more problems than they solve.

While true, common sense has been tried. And tried. And tried. Time
after time the airlines proved that they don't have common sense, so
arbitrary regulations are all that is left.

When the people involved _have_ used common sense . . . that doesn't
make the news. I'm not saying that there haven't been serious lapses in
judgment, but we're being manipulated by the media and politicians. The
media picks up the really egregious incident and uses it to create a
sensational story to sell their product; the politicians grab this
perceived problem and pat themselves on the back for solving it.

Talk about using common sense . . . when you apply it to this new
regulation, does it pass the test? Solving a problem doesn't count if
you create worse problems in the process.

For example, I believe that the 3-hour timer starts when the plane
pushes back. What if the airlines decide that the way around this is to
not have the plane push back? This will have the effect of increasing
delays for incoming aircraft because there will be no gate to unload
arriving passengers. So the outgoing passengers have the same delay
(except that part of it isn't subject to the new regulations) and the
incoming passengers get to sit on the tarmac and wait for a gate. Now
you've got two planeloads of people delayed instead of just one.

There must be some common ground between letting the airlines ignore the
needs of passengers and imposing an arbitrary deadline that will result
in different inconvenience for passengers. Is imposing an arbitrary
three-hour limit really the best way to improve service if it results in
the airlines simply canceling the flight?

If we want to think outside the box, I rather like Jochen's suggestion
to provide the penalty to the passengers, rather than kick it into some
amorphous fund that doesn't directly benefit the people involved. Make
it a sliding fee based on the length of the delay, and refund it to the
folks involved. That motivates the behavior change you're looking for
but not at the expense of every other consideration. In other words,
rather than treating a ticket as the privilege of flying on a specific
flight, consider it as the service of moving a person from point A to
point B at a particular date/time. If the airline cannot do that, then
force them to refund a part of the cost of the ticket, the amount
dependent on how much they miss the target service.

On Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:44:03 -0500, "TheNewsGuy(Mike)"
wrote:


Thunderstorms. We were stuck at YYZ for 2 hours before they could
unload the plane due to lightening in the area. And with NO support
from the Air Canada flight staff who hid from the passengers it was a
terrible experience after a five hour flight - especially with kids onboard.

These rules make an exception for times when there are safety issues.