Originally Posted by
Brick
Once you get out of the departure line, you go back to the end of the ATC line. By returning to the gate, you lose your departure slot. At some airports this could be worth quite a bit of time. Blame ATC procedures for this, not the airline. An airline just can't bring an aircraft from the gate to the runway jumping the line when departures are queued up long.
You also make the assumption that a gate is available for an aircraft to return to. An aircraft just cannot return to any gate. It has to be one operated by the airline. If all of the gates are occupied, now what? Also, if you occupy a gate because of a delayed departure, where does an arriving aircraft go (at airports that only have a few gates)? That's right, it waits on the tarmac.
Returning to the gate is not necessarily the best option...
You forgot the part about how getting out of line and taxiing back to the gate may not be possible without significantly disrupting the flow or airplanes on the field, thereby causing even more problems.
The 3-hour rule sucks and Smisek is stepping up and stating the obvious:
More flights are going to be canceled because of this and the carriers have no legal responsibility to make it up to their customers other than via refunding the original fare paid. Jeff's note in the front of February's Continental Magazine basically outlined this new policy - albeit with the angle that it was better for folks - and CO has already started implementing the policy. It happened a couple weeks ago at EWR with the snowstorm on Friday and EWR was a mess. Get ready for more of that thanks to unnecessary government regulations.
How difficult is it to let people off a plane before they spend 3 hours on the ground? At the 2:45 mark, head back to a gate (or holding area if no gate is available) and deplane the passengers. What am I missing here? What would CO do if there were a seriously sick passenger and no available gate? Let 'em die?
There is a difference between an actual emergency and an arbitrary rule handed down by the Feds. And a medical issue at that point would likely lead to a cancellation, same as with the 3-hour rule.