The DOT is increasing penalties for airlines failing to allow passengers to deboard during lengthy tarmac delays.
Airlines must return to the gate before sitting for 3 hours on the tarmac for domestic flights and before sitting for 4 hours on international flights.
American failed to do that on 43 flights between 2018-2021 and the DOT has fined them a record $2.05M for those failures. An additional fine of $2.05M was waived due to compensation provided to passengers on these and on other delayed flights.
Airlines must also provide food and water within 2 hours of departing the gate or landing, which American failed to do on at least 1 of those flights.
If you’re stuck on a flight with a lengthy delay, be sure you know your rights and ask for food and drinks or a return to the gate when required.
HT: chff
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18 Comments On "DOT Fines American $2.05M For 43 Lengthy Tarmac Delays"
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AA doesn’t care about a $2 million fine when they’ve made $1.3b just in Q2 2023.
AA board members… we spoke with our accountant, it was still worth Not having to pay those ppl a full refund or a place to stay until next flight, we will do it again as long the DOT Fines stays like this…
What is $2M? One month salary for one AA executive?
Its not AA that was fined it is the consumer
They will just pass the bill on to their customers in the form of price increases
Believe me, they are already charging the maximum they can. Remember, there’s competition out there
I one time made an American Airlines JFK-MIA flight get canceled after I complained at the 2 hour mark asking for water and telling them they have to provide. They quietly gave me a bottle and then immediately after saw the flight attendants huddle and then they announced we are returning to the gate.
im reading its $4.1 million not $2.05
Fake news, as this post breaks down.
Of the $4.1 million assessed, $2.05 million will be credited to the airline for compensation provided to passengers of impacted flights.
(Reuters)
That’s still a penalty to the airline. If they paid a million dollars to each passenger, and nothing to the government, would you say they weren’t fined at all?
Yes. They even got credit for payments to passengers on other delayed flights besides for these.
For a second I thought it said DDF fined them 🙂
American told USDOT these delays were the result of exceptional weather events, and that the flights represented less than 0.001% of the approximately 7.7 million flights operated by American and its regional partners during the period of 2018 to 2021.
American airlines hired an expensive public relations company to come up with this reply.
@Dan, a couple of weeks ago we sat on the tarmac for about 1 hour before take-off plus 2 1/2 hours at landing (landed 9:20 and off the plane 11:50) before they let us off. Do the times add up and should I file a complaint?
If you didn’t get food and water within 2 hours, file a DOT complaint.
We waited almost 5 hours on a UA flight leaving Newark last year. After returning to the gate, we had to spend the night at the airport as the flight would not leave til the next day. Not one peso in compensation. I complained online directly to UA but received nothing until I filed a complaint with DOT. We each got $300 in UA credits apiece.
“American Airlines said these delays were the result of exceptional weather events, and that the flights represented less than 0.001% of the approximately 7.7 million flights operated by American and its regional partners during the period of 2018 to 2021.”
Sounds like American hired a fancy public relations firm that came up with this
What use is this to the passengers who were delayed? The only one benefiting here is the recipient of the fine…
It’s high time they introduce legislation to compensate passengers in such scenarios like they do in Europe, Israel etc.