longtime lurker

Really? It doesn't happen in Europe?

Ryanair: http://www.gadling.com/2009/12/28/ry...ve-hour-delay/
Air France: http://www.travelweekly.com/article.aspx?id=170726
Easyjet: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/tra...cle3724769.ece
BA: http://boingboing.net/2008/03/29/bri...ways-lose.html
etc.

It happens in Europe. Perhaps you don't hear about it because you don't live there and aren't monitoring European news websites. Heck, if there's an incident in a non-English speaking European country, it's even more difficult to hear about it unless you speak the native language or the flight was bound for an English-speaking country.

Weather happens. Flights get delayed. I'm with the folks who'd rather wait on the tarmac for hours and get where I need to be than never get there at all because overbearing government regulations force airlines to preemptively cancel flights. But YMMV.

waltinsocal

Mandatory free alcohol, water and snacks for any delays of more than 2 hours, and there will be no more delays. The airlines will adjust, and so will the FAA. Right now there is no incentive to do better.. I promise that.

fti

Really? Can you point to a link that shows someone never got to their destination at all, except for fatal plane crashes? I can't.

Sorry, as much as I don't like government regulation, it is obvious that the airlines can't self-police themselves on this issue. They have tried and failed. I would rather that the government step in and threat to impose large fines on the airlines. The airlines will then work to make things happen. They might cancel a flight but then that same plane can be used for a "new" flight to get passengers to their destination. I am sure the airlines will get creative when they are facing hefty fines.

Down3Green

If you look at the busiest airports in the world as ranked by aircraft movements (which is what causes congestion, not necessarily number of PAX), you find that 9 of the top 10 airports are located in the United States. The first European airport doesn't show up until #8 (CDG). Even if you widen it out to the top 30 busiest airports in the world, 21 of those are still in the United States. There are certainly congested corridors in Europe, but for shear volume, nothing else in the world compares to the aviation picture in the US and that includes a robust General Aviation industry that isn't matched by anything close in the rest of the world.


Busiest Aircraft Traffic Rankings

longtime lurker

Yeah - when you're taking a one- or two-day trip for an important event like a business meeting, wedding or funeral or even a short weekend vacation and your flight gets canceled because the airline is unwilling to risk getting fined, your trip is in vain. If there are no flights available later that day, you might as well not take the trip at all, since you will have no time at your destination even if you got there.

Airlines can self-police themselves on this issue. Extended delays are already few and far between. But weather and mechanicals still happen - it's inevitable. In my view, the only regulation necessary is one that would require passengers be made aware of the possibility of a forseeable long delay at the gate and those who don't want to wait it out on the plane given an opportunity to rebook or cancel. It's more logical than penalizing those who need to be somewhere by levying excessive fines and forcing airlines to cancel those flights. Sometimes, you need to get where you need to go. The new rule illogically hurts those people.

Rescheduling flights is not as simple as putting passengers on the same airplane. There are many other issues. For example, both the airplane and the crew are likely scheduled to be somewhere else the next day. So you're now severely delaying one flight AND canceling or severely delaying another, inconveniencing double the number of passengers than if they tried to get the plane off the ground.

fti

That has been tried already - and it doesn't work! Think of NW at DTW several years ago, NW/DL in RST recently, and several others that I know of but can't think of specifically right now.

Well, it depends on one's definition of "few and far between." 1,173 flights delayed longer than 3 hours last year is not my definition of few and far between.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/jetcheck/archives/197243.asp

Unfortunately sometimes it is not always known before push-back that there will be such a delay.

Yes, it might mean that some trips become trips-in-vain. But the airlines are the only ones to blame for this predicament.

longtime lurker

That you can only think of one example off the top of your head proves my point - these incidents are extremely rare, and usually weather-related, due to things like heavy thunderstorms at MSP and RST (plus a lack of common sense by CO and NW), a freak icestorm predicted to be less severe than it turned out to be at JFK (the B6 incident) or a blizzard at DTW (the NW incident).

Yes, it is. According to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, there are an average of 28,537 commercial flights (mainline and regional) a day. That's about 10,000,000 flights per year. So you're talking about significant delays on just 0.01% of all commercial flights, or one out of every 8,500 flights (1 in 7,143 flights, according to the Air Transport Association in your linked article). Either way, if you fly once this year, you're more likely to injure yourself shaving (1 in 6,585), die in a car accident (1 in 6,500), or get a hole-in-one (1 in 5000) this year than be on a plane that is delayed on the tarmac for 3 or more hours. Like I said, few and far between. People tend to overestimate the likelihood of low-probability events. Yet because of the risk of fines, airlines will preemptively cancel more than just those 1,173 flights per year now, inconveniencing many more. Thanks for the dumb rule!

No, it isn't - but often it is. Most of these long delays are due to bad weather, usually at the departure airport, sometimes at the arrival airport. Weather can be predicted. Deicing issues can be predicted. Congestion can usually be predicted. Maintenance issues may or may not be able to be predicted before boarding.

Mother Nature and the government's dumb rule is more to blame for this predicament than the airlines.

fti

No need to debate with someone who can't count

And if the 3+ hour delays are indeed "few and far between", you proved my point - they inconvenience very few pax and there is no reason to hold pax hostage on planes for that long. Thank you very much lol. Once the airlines realize that canceling "more than just those 1,173 flights per year" costs them money, they will find a way to work with the system. Oh, no they won't. It is *airlines* we are talking about here. They have a broken business model and rarely if ever make a profit anyway.

waltinsocal

PB, man to man, I think you are hot. But, even though I agree with 99% of your posts, cannot the airlines do better?

pragakhan

Have you ever been stuck on a tarmac for five hours or more?

pbarnette

Thanks for answering the question for me. I would also note that all 3 of the NYC airports make the list, and combine for roughly 1.2m aircraft movements. This is the prime trouble spot and, AFAIK, the only city in Europe that rivals it for traffic is London. The combined traffic of EWR, JFK, and LGA is roughly 60% higher than CDG + ORY. And neither Paris nor London see the kind of winter weather that can causes a lot of the problems in NYC. And, everyone complains about delays at CDG and LHR. IIRC, the on-time performance at LHR is usually in the 65%-70% range, which is about what the NYC airports manage.

There are certainly some very efficient airports in Europe, but there are some very efficient airports in the US. Someone mentioned Stockholm. Well, the appropriate comparison for Stockholm isn't NYC. Compare it to some place like SEA and the US airports don't look so bad. Heck, don't the Hawaiian airports have on-time performance in the 90% range?

jimrpa

Delta and JetBlue should NOT be granted the exemption. They've known about the capacity reduction at JFK for some time. They're big companies with good planning staffs. They should simply adjust their schedules to meet the available capacity. If more airlines want to use JFK than it has capacity to support, then the owners of JFK should institute limits on operations, and go back to slot control. Let the market efficiently allocate available capacity.