First-Ever Measure Of Strandings, Cancellations Based On
Airline Reports
Saying the agency is committed to
providing airline passengers with better information about flights
that experience the worst tarmac delays, on Wednesday the US
Department of Transportation released new, comprehensive data that,
for the first time, include extended runway times for flights that
were later cancelled and for flights diverted to alternative
airports.
"This new information will help the Department keep better track
of the most onerous tarmac delays while providing flyers a valuable
new resource to help them choose carriers and flights,"
Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said.
Carriers were previously required to report their taxi-out and
taxi-in times, Peters noted, but their reports did not include
flights that were cancelled after having left the gate or were
diverted to another airport before reaching their scheduled
destinations.
The new reporting rule requires the airlines that file on-time
data to provide the Department's Bureau of Transportation
Statistics with information on all of their tarmac delays, she
said.
The report shows that in October, only 0.0001 percent of
scheduled flights by the 19 reporting airlines, a total of 50
flights, were delayed on the tarmac for three hours or more. A
total of six flights out of 554,325 by the reporting carriers had
tarmac delays of four hours or more. Three of the six flights were
identified due to the new reporting requirements: one was later
cancelled, one was diverted, and a third was reported because of an
additional clarification in the reporting of multiple gate
departures.
The new data is the latest in a series of efforts by the
Department to address concerns about lengthy tarmac delays,
following a number of high-profile incidents during the winter of
2006-2007 in which passengers were stranded on grounded planes for
hours.
As ANN reported, last month DOT proposed a
number of consumer protection measures, including a requirement
that airlines adopt contingency plans for lengthy tarmac delays and
incorporate them in their contracts of carriage.
Nevertheless, passenger rights advocates said the DOT's measures
fall short in a number of areas, in particular due to the lack of
set guidelines over what constitutes a delay in the first
place.