Airline Delays Plunge After US Levies Hefty Fines

LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) — If you couldn't get to your flying destination in December because severe weather forced your airline to cancel your flight, it's pretty clear now why: huge federal fines for flights that are delayed too long.

New data shows that airlines cut the number of tarmac delays by over 97 percent since they begin facing fines of $27,000 per passengers for tarmac delays of more than three hours.

Travel expert Rudy Maxa tells KFWB's Maggie McKay says the fines may be working, but even a delay less than the maximum three hours isn't fun for any traveler.

Only three flights, operated by Delta, United and Pinnacle, were stuck on the tarmac for more than three hours that month, but none of them were held up by the storm. The tally didn't include some international flights that were delayed for more than three hours — including flights operated by Cathay Pacific and British Airways that spent over seven hours on the tarmac at New York's JFK airport.

It also doesn't include more than 300 flights that waited for two hours on the tarmac.

Still, that's less than the 371 flights that waited on the tarmac between two and three hours last December.

International airlines are not subject to rule, even if they land or takeoff from U.S. airports. The Transportation Department is considering expanding the rule to include them.

Since the rule was implemented in April, 15 planes have gone past the three-hour mark, but none has been fined. There were 584 flights delayed on the tarmac for more than three hours in the same period a year earlier.

The December blizzard shut Northeast airports and led to nearly 10,000 cancellations by the 18 biggest U.S. airlines. There were almost 20,000 cancellations overall in December. By cancelling flights well ahead of bad weather, airlines are better able to keep planes moving through the rest of their networks.

Cancellations don't cost airlines as much as some might think. Canceling a flight eliminates fuel and labor costs. Many passengers will fly, just on later flights, so the airline still collects its fare.

Widespread cancellations in December helped ease the burden on other airport traffic. U.S. airlines operated 72 percent of their flights on time in December, the same as the year before. Airline on-time rates fell from the month before, though. In November, 83.2 percent of flights were on time.

JetBlue, which canceled 1,400 flights in a span of five days before, during and after the blizzard, operated the fewest on-time flights last month. Only about 58.6 percent of its planes were on time. Three regional airlines that operate flights for major airlines - Comair, SkyWest and Pinnacle — also operated fewer than two-thirds of their flights on-time.

Southwest Airlines had an on-time rate of 67.1 percent. Southwest had one of the best records for getting passengers to their destinations on time, because they avoided crowded big-city airports, favoring secondary airports with less traffic. In 2009 the airline moved into busy airports like New York's LaGuardia and Boston's Logan, where it's trying to attract more business travelers.

Southwest also had the only flight — on its Baltimore-to-New York route — that was labeled "chronically delayed" for three straight months.

Hawaiian, United Airlines and AirTran had the highest on-time rates in December - all above 80 percent.

The DOT report said the number of complaints against airlines rose slightly in December compared to the same month of 2009. Passengers filed almost 600 complaints. Most of them were about canceled flights and mishandled baggage. Overall the airlines did a better job of handling bags in December than the year before, with fewer reports of lost or damaged luggage.

The government also said the airlines bumped fewer passengers from overbooked flights in the last quarter of 2009.

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