The airlines fight back
Is it possible the airline travel experience could get worse? If you believe the threats some airlines are making, the answer could be yes.
Airlines are threatening to cancel flights if new rules that would prohibit them for keeping passengers on the tarmac for more than 3 hours take effect. Starting in late April, airlines could be fined up to $27,500 per passenger for violating the rule. More from the Wall Street Journal:
The threats could foreshadow significant changes in air travel, making it even less reliable for millions of road warriors and vacationers. By canceling flights, it could take days for all travelers to get home when storms strike.
Of course, the warnings from carriers could simply be posturing to pressure the government into leniency. Passenger-rights advocates say airlines are trying to scare fliers. And the Department of Transportation says carriers have a lot of other options to avoid fines.
Still, on Tuesday, Continental Airlines Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Smisek threw down the gauntlet, calling DOT’s rule “stupid.” Even though many passengers will risk long delays to get where they are going, “the government by God says, ‘We’re going to fine you $27,500,’” he said at an investor conference in New York. “Here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to cancel the flight.”
Ouch. More:
Kate Hanni became a passenger rights advocate, founded FlyersRights.org and pushed for the three-hour rule after being stranded for 10 hours on an American Airlines flight three years ago. She says travelers prefer cancellations to the uncertainty of being trapped on a stranded airplane or stranded at an airport halfway through their journey.
“We don’t get complaints when people are stuck in airports, only when they are stuck on airplanes. It’s better for airlines to pre-cancel,” she said. “They are trying to scare everybody that canceling is some kind of horrific travel nightmare and it’s not.”
Do you agree with her, that it’s better to cancel than to be stuck on a tarmac for hours? As a passenger, where do you come down on this?
- Mar 11, 2010 9:45 AM — Scott Jagow
- 15 comments
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Comments (15)
March 11, 2010 10:51 AM PT
As unpleasant as it is to have your flight cancelled, as a parent of four young kids I can say that there’s nothing worse than being stuck on an airplane for untold hours without any clear end in sight.
March 11, 2010 11:59 AM PT
Depends on how far away the location is. Sometimes it’s easier to drive and it would be nice to know if I’m not going anywhere.
March 11, 2010 12:14 PM PT
I agree that I’d rather have the flight cancelled than sit on the tarmac for untold hours. I get claustrophobic enough when things go as scheduled. Three hours is too long but reasonable as a limit. And if the airlines want to continue their attitude of hostility toward passengers, they will suffer from it in the long run. To bad they can’t just be nice.
March 11, 2010 1:02 PM PT
Way worse to be on the tarmac. In the terminal, you can walk around, get food, use a rest room without making it so full its useless for the rest of the flight, and you have power to recharge batteries for laptop and phone. No question at all.
March 11, 2010 2:14 PM PT
I think the folks at the major air carriers would do well to look at the auto industry to see what happens when you drive away customers. Then try to learn from that experience.
Cancel flights. Drive away customers. Go out of business. Explain to shareholders how you drove the company into the ground by failing to adapt to the regulatory environment, choosing instead to take a pound of flesh from the customers.
Are MBA programs not teaching their students that the customers are a necessary part of the success of an enterprise - without them you fail?
March 11, 2010 4:46 PM PT
I rather be off the plane for sure. On a plane, you’re a prisoner, in the terminal, you have more rights.
If they’re going to cancel, then so be it. How would that look if an airline is consistently canceling flights. I wonder how many people will CHOSE to fly with that airline again.
As for Continental’s comment in the story, thanks Continental for reminding me why I never fly with you.
March 11, 2010 7:36 PM PT
I’d rather they cancel the flight than force me to sit for more than 3 hours on the tarmac.
March 12, 2010 5:24 AM PT
OK That’s it. I’ll just stay home and spend the money paying bills. The airlines can have their spat without me.
March 12, 2010 10:27 AM PT
Cancel the flight. At least I have other options I can explore and don’t feel like a helpless prisoner in an alumninum tube.
March 12, 2010 12:39 PM PT
Frank Lorenzo lives!
Cancel the flight and rebook on any other alternative airline available.
March 12, 2010 1:41 PM PT
I’m sick of the airlines acting like we’re the enemy, and not the customer. Let’s just skip them all-together and do web meetings for business - much more environmentally friendly and cost-effective. For family get-togethers, I’ll drive when I can or take the train. They actually seem to like their customers.
March 12, 2010 2:49 PM PT
Be stuck on the plane overnight with non working toilets and 2 kids? No, thank you! Cancel the flight! Then at least I can go to hotel, or I can make a choice what to do. I wonder if airlines are keeping passengers in the plane overnight just to avoid paying for the hotels.
March 12, 2010 5:35 PM PT
Yet another reason for the U.S. to get to work on high speed trains. Anyone ever taken the TGV/ Just bliss….
March 13, 2010 10:47 AM PT
If the airlines carry through with these kinds of threats, sounds like the best kind of advertising in the world for High Speed Rail
March 14, 2010 4:41 PM PT
Mr. Smisek, as they say about the chief executives that are today’s royalty, you’ve received some bad advice. (Of course it’s not your fault. You pay millions to public affairs staff and firms to make it so.) But you’ve already put it out there. You’ve set yourself up as opposing your customers. The “flying public”. In the most “let them eat cake” way that’s available to you. You sound like a child. Why? Failure as to who. Failure as to when. Failure as to message. Epic fail, and this one will stick. You and fellow airline CEOs had better be ready to keep hammering that it’s you against the government, and not you against your customers. Just to get past this.
On the other hand, there you are. You already don’t get it. Time to hire some new people, a new firm. (Hint: When you’re invited to capitol hill about this, fly on one of your own planes. No, not one of the corporate jets.)
Oh, and for the relatively few extra dollars it will cost CO - the dollars someone has told you you will lose if you let those passengers off the plane - you should reverse course and go along with this one. Many will stay, and many more will fly CO again. Isn’t that what we’re ALL about?