More of The Law of Unintended Consequences

The Christmas snowstorm that struck the east coast of the United States seems to have done a great job of grounding flights and causing massive travel delays. The latest information is that some people traveling home from Christmas vacations may be stranded as long as Sunday, January 2, 2010; one week after their planned return.

The question is how much of this is actually due to the storm conditions and how much was due to premature cancelations in anticipation of the storm. With current technology, it is fairly easy for airlines to predict how heavily their flights will be effected by bad weather. This and a history of massive stranding of travelers at airports cause airlines to change policy and preemptively cancel more flights to give passengers more options than just sitting and sleeping in airports. Northwestern was one of the first airlines to adopt this policy after a Midwest storm grounded a massive number of flights several years ago.

In April 2010, new rules went into effect via government regulation that allowed fines of $27,500 per passenger seated in a plane on the tarmac for more than 3 hours. This rule came into being after horror stories of travelers be confined inside the claustrophobic environment of a plane/jetliner for up to 9 hours without bathroom access, access to food and water and other essentials. Many are questioning whether or not the current conditions were brought about by a genuine sense of prudence and passenger convenience, or if they are the result of an outrageous and overly punitive fine policy mandated by overzealous federal regulation.

An Airline Forecasts spokesperson, Vaughn Cordie, stated:

Amy Cohn, an associate professor of industrial and operations engineering at the University of Michigan and an affiliate at MIT’s Global Airline Industry Program, stated:

Others claim that since the Midwest storm fiasco, that the weather drove the greatest number of cancellations — not the new tarmac rules. However, they also admit that at least anecdotally, the airlines have changed their behavior more overtly since the new rules went into effect. However, even with this observation, people in this camp, such as Air Transport Association spokesperson, David Castelveter, insist that the cause-effect relationship of the new rules-airlines behavior modification, in this case, is unlikely.

Here’s an interesting fact to consider when evaluating this issue:

A surge in delays was noted in the summer following the enactment of the new tarmac rules. It was suggested then that the Department of Transportation consider tarmac-delay-rule refinements, such as graduating the fines, collecting specific tarmac-related data, deferring the implementation of the rule to international flights for small airports until the cancellations drop, increasing the time limit to four hours and improving real-time information exchange between the tower and airlines during tarmac delay conditions. Many of these suggestions have not been considered; let alone acted upon.

The bottom line:

While the fines have reduced three-hours delays, an increasing number of delays under three hours do impose a massive — to consumers.