After debacle, American will keep fliers on planes no longer than 4 hours
07:55 AM CST on Friday, February 9, 2007
By TERRY MAXON / The Dallas Morning News
[email protected]
American Airlines Inc. says it won't hold passengers on grounded aircraft more than four hours, a policy born from its December debacle in which thousands of passengers spent hours waiting for storms to pass inside crowded, parked planes.
American spokesman Tim Wagner said the Dec. 29 situation was so rare that American veterans can't recall a similar day when weather disrupted operations in such a way.
Even so, the Fort Worth-based carrier decided that in the future, four hours will be the maximum they would hold a flight before deciding to cancel it and unload the passengers.
"It's a rule now," Mr. Wagner said. "It's a rule that may never be used again, though."
A prolonged series of thunderstorms disrupted operations at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport from midday through late evening on the Friday between Christmas and New Year's Day, when American's airplanes were filled with holiday travelers.
American's operations managers diverted 121 American and American Eagle flights to other airports, and other flights taxied away from gates at originating airports and sat while waiting for D/FW weather to improve.
Officials said they didn't cancel the flights for hours on Dec. 29 because they expected the storms to abate. Instead, thunderstorms kept re-forming and passing over North Texas, and thousands of passengers were kept waiting on parked airplanes.
A number of passengers caught on those flights – particularly from several flights that were diverted to Austin and sat on the ground for eight hours or longer – are pressing Congress to pass laws protecting passengers from recurrences.
Other changes
In addition to the four-hour policy, American is making changes at its systems operations control center in Fort Worth to better handle diversions and make sure officials are aware when passengers' wait times are building up.
The airline is creating a position to oversee diversions and help schedule flights to get passengers back to its connecting hubs. It is developing automation tools to warn managers when passengers have been on the ground a long time. The carrier said it also was "reviewing all procedures related to customer handling and make appropriate changes as needed."
Passengers' treatment
Stranded passengers had criticized the airline for how it handled passengers after the flight cancellations, with inadequate staffing at airports, poor communications about what was going to happen next and not enough help while they were waiting.
Mr. Wagner said American was reluctant to cancel flights that day because it didn't want to strand the thousands of passengers, knowing that it would have a hard time finding seats for them over the holiday weekend.
He said 4,600 customers on 67 planes sat more than three hours on Dec. 29, a good portion of whom were kept on board for more than four hours.
American is sending apologies and vouchers of up to $500 to passengers who were subjected to waits of three hours or more on the ground.