# JetBlue fined $90K for alleged delay mishap



## amtrakwolverine (Aug 20, 2012)

> WASHINGTON — JetBlue Airways Corp. has been fined $90,000 by the Department of Transportation for allegedly not informing passengers on A flight delayed at New York's JFK Airport that they could get off the plane while it sat at the gate.


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48728252#.UDL78KDg91g


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## Anderson (Aug 21, 2012)

Interesting situation. I didn't know that was the rule, actually.

It brings to mind a serious policy suggestion, vaguely-related here: Has anybody considered barring planes from pulling away from the gate until they have an expected takeoff time within, say, half an hour or 45 minutes, in addition to this? Doing so might actually force a bit of responsibility on the airports in terms of slotting (which seems to be a good deal of the problem with some of these situations).


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## amtrakwolverine (Aug 22, 2012)

Former president bush Jr made it a rule that airlines have to allow you to get off and feed you and give you water if stuck on the tarmac for a extended amount of time.


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## jis (Aug 22, 2012)

Anderson said:


> Interesting situation. I didn't know that was the rule, actually.
> 
> It brings to mind a serious policy suggestion, vaguely-related here: Has anybody considered barring planes from pulling away from the gate until they have an expected takeoff time within, say, half an hour or 45 minutes, in addition to this? Doing so might actually force a bit of responsibility on the airports in terms of slotting (which seems to be a good deal of the problem with some of these situations).


That is mostly what is done anyway, since no airline in its right mind wants to just for fun run their planes around the airport. One of the unintended consequences of this sort of a rule will be that arriving flights will have to sit out on tarmac because you are now not allowed to move departing flights out of gates since say for temporary local weather reasons you do not have an exact slot, even though you have a sequence and you have flow control clearance and know that you will get a slot as soon as the thunderstorm on the departure vector moves on. So suppose a ground hold happens after you leave the gate with a slot, what then? Do you have to rush back to a gate, which may not be available anymore?

Oh please please don't make more ill considered rules! That will pretty much cause departing flights to be delayed way more than they are now, and arriving flight to not get arrival gates as soon as they can now. Each time you reduce flexibility of operations by ill considered rules like this ultimately a larger group of passengers suffer. Don't get me wrong, I am all for controlling egregious behavior of airlines, but blanket rules that reduce flexibility of operations is not the right way to achieve that.

I know you want to create advantage for rail even though such service is mostly unavailable to people. But please do not screw the airline passengers in the process, the government is quite capable of doing that without further help from you  . And this is coming from someone who does a lot of flying like over 100k miles each year. I do not want to see people who seldom fly to take it upon themselves to cause more problems for the likes of me.

OK, I guess now I should duck ready to get lynched by the railroad crazies around here  :help:


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## Anderson (Aug 22, 2012)

jis said:


> Anderson said:
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> > Interesting situation. I didn't know that was the rule, actually.
> ...


Actually, I would like to see responsibility on this front to be transferred to the _airports_ from the _airlines_. For the most part, the problems seem to (primarily) stem from airports pushing their gate use far, far too close to capacity. Put into plain language, if you get a massive pile-up, it should be the airport (or airport authority) that pays through the nose since they're the ones who actually control the operations at the airport; this would be analagous to Amtrak's ability to sue a host railroad for chronic delays.


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## PRR 60 (Aug 22, 2012)

Anderson said:


> jis said:
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> > Anderson said:
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Airports do not have control over use of gates and air-side operations other than leasing the gates and collecting rent. In the few cases where there is slot control, that is a DOT function, not an airport function. Given that these kinds of problems are so few and far between that it becomes news when it happens, I don't see a need for any additional remedies beyond those already in place through the DOT.


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## jis (Aug 22, 2012)

Anderson said:


> jis said:
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> > Anderson said:
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As PRR says, shifting responsibility to airports would be pointless since they have no control over ops. The only way to fix the problem is slot control and the folks that can do that want to avoid doing so as far as possible. Fortunately the roblem is to some extent taking care of itself since airlines themselves want tor educe the number of flights in order to match capacity better with demand. 2011 has actually been one of the best years in the last decade so far as far as OTP of airlines goes.

Afterall you don't see entrances to highways being controlled (beyond simple metering lights) just because there is massive traffic on the highway. And we all know how very effective Amtrak's ability to sue host railroads is in keeping Amtrak trains on time too. Indeed it is not clear that host railroads will lose a case if they can show that they gave Amtrak preferential treatment. I don't think a court will take a charge that the freight railroad is running too many trains and hence causing Amtrak delays even when Amtrak is given preferential treatment, too seriously. Of course the most immediate remedy will be to stretch out Amtrak schedules by another 10% and keep doing so until it happens to make the schedule within the threshold. But is that what we would want? From a business perspective if Amtrak wants three of the additional freights to not run in order for Amtrak to meet its schedule, shouldn't Amtrak be paying the freight railroad the revenues it thus loses for that privilege?


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