The U.S. Department of Transportation changed airline rules in favor of passengers
New rules aimed at protecting passenger rights have been developed since 2007. The acceleration of work on them was prompted by a scandalous incident in August at Rochester Airport, Minnesota. A Continental Express plane with 47 passengers on board had to sit all night on the runway. They were waiting for word from Minneapolis, the destination, that the airport, closed due to bad weather, had begun accepting planes. Continental Express has no waiting lounge in Rochester. An employee of Mesaba Airlines, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines Inc., which does have one, told the captain that all airport security staff had already gone home, so passengers would have to wait in the cabin. In November, both companies were fined: Continental Express $50,000, and Mesaba Airlines $75,000.
Under the new rules, the fine for such a violation should increase to $1.2 million. Airlines that do not provide passengers with food and water after two hours of being on the ground in the cabin, or the opportunity to leave after three hours, will be fined $27,500 per passenger. Thus, the fine for a typical flight could reach a very substantial sum. For example, a violation on a flight with a plane capacity of 120 people would cost the airline $3.3 million. From now on, even planes on short flights where meals are not provided will have to carry food and drinks in case of unforeseen lengthy delays.
According to the Department of Transportation, the number of U.S. airline flights delayed on the ground for more than three hours is relatively small – about 1,500 annually, that is, roughly one in every 6,200 passenger flights on domestic routes in America. But even this relatively small number of delays was enough to ruin the trip for about 114,000 passengers each year and create strong public irritation against airlines.
The most high-profile scandal related to lengthy delays occurred 10 years ago, in January 1999, in Detroit, when Northwest Airlines grounded more than 50 of its planes with several thousand passengers, knowing they could not take off due to a severe snowstorm, and kept them in the cabins without food or water for many hours. The disregard for people's rights and common sense cost the carrier more than $7 million, which it had to pay in lawsuits from affected customers.
Passengers are very pleased with the innovations. For example, Kate Hanni, who organized the website for victims FlyersRights.org after she and her family were forced to spend nine hours in a plane cabin when their flight was diverted to Austin due to bad weather in Dallas, called the new rules a "Christmas miracle." "This is President Obama's Passenger Bill of Rights," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at a press conference, assessing the new regulations.