New Rules Limit Tarmac Waiting to 3 Hours-Is it Still Too Long?
Over the past couple of years we have heard horror stories of people stuck inside airplanes on tarmacs for hours, with bathrooms backing up, crying kids, no food, no end in sight. That will hopefully be a thing of the past under new rules announced Monday. But do those rules?go far enough?
The time limit will now be three hours. According to the guidelines the Transportation Department handed down, passengers must be given food and water if they are on a plane waiting to take off for two hours. By the third hour, passengers must be given the option of getting off the plane. The fine for failing to comply will be $27,500 per passenger.
“This is President Obama's Passenger Bill of Rights,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
The problem was highlighted by a Continental Express flight that sat on the tarmac in Minnesota overnight with 47 passengers. There were conflicting stories on who would not allow the plane to return to the terminal. In all, $175,000 in fines were imposed. Under the new rules, that fine would have been $1.3 million.
There are some exceptions to the new rules. LaHood said that if returning to the terminal would cause a safety problem or interfere with operations at the airport, airlines would not be penalized.
The Transportation Department said that in 2007 and 2008 there was an average of 1,500 flights a year, with 114,000 passengers, held on the tarmac for more than three hours. Department officials said that with a rule in place, the number of such delays was certain to fall.
The airlines are generally reluctant to take an airplane back to the terminal, because the plane then loses its place in line for takeoff and must start again at the end.
As far as airlines that do not serve food, LaHood said they would have to have emergency supplies on hand.
“They’re going to have to have peanuts, pretzels on their regional jets; they’re going to have to start stocking up,” he said.
The new rules, which apply only for domestic flights, go into effect in 120 days.
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When a plane is late, compensation is given to passengers. Similar rules should apply to tarmac time after it exceeds 45 minutes.
The compensation should increase with time spent just like for late planes.
The ability to get off a plane if you've been waiting that long is an obvious thing. I understand the food thing, since some health issues require that.
However, this rule will actually have zero effect. Why? Look at the disclaimer: "There are some exceptions to the new rules. LaHood said that if returning to the terminal would cause a safety problem or interfere with operations at the airport, airlines would not be penalized."
There is not a single airline that keeps you on the tarmac for over 3 hours "just for kicks." No company intentionally tries to piss off their customers. It usually happens because of poor management or factors outside their control. The same is true of airlines and all of the delays could be argued to be a result of "operations at the airport" so abiding by the rules would interfere with it, nullifying the rule effectively.
It would be a breeze to articulate a "safety issue or Operational interference" in a report designed to save the company $27,500/passenger. This is toothless. It will change absolutely nothing, just like caelum stated.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
I'm always curious whether rules with obviously exploitable loopholes are put in place because of naive incompetence in missing the loophole or if it's just a political game. And I'm frustrated that I can never be sure which is the case.
As a side note, I once read a paper that punitive regulation against private enterprise is almost entirely ineffective (excluding criminally-liable punitive regulations or possible revocation of business licenses; I'm talking about fines). The paper essentially found that private enterprise will more often than not find that loophole to circumvent the fine. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if large corporations hire legal teams to discover a loophole in the rule, in fact, scratch that - I'd expect them to hire those legal teams. Interestingly, definite regulations (e.g. net capital requirement rules) seem quite effective, but punitive regulations are mostly worthless. But, anyway, my point was after reading that paper it convinced me that punitive regulations should be used only when no other option is really available and it's a serious problem - because more often than not it will just be a waste of everyone's time.
In short, more often that not private business executives will be more creative (and attentive) than government regulators. Of course, I think that's become obvious given this financial crisis.
I lean toward the theory that politicians create the loopholes purposefully. This wins them votes with the masses while earning them campaign financing from the money -holders.
As a side note to your side note, I think that raising taxes on companies- and almost exclusively during periods when populist sentiment is the prevailing political wind- is just as bad-- Nay, worse-- than loophole creation because not only does it fool some of the people all the time, but the very fooled people are the ones who end up paying the taxes anyhow.
For example, all of the new fees applied to drug manufacturers and medical device manufacturers in the HealthCare reform bill are simply going to be passed off to the consumer of those products, even though they are being heralded as, similar to what you were saying, punitive reform measures on those industries.
Even the CBO reported such practices, but people seem to be deaf to such truths.
This brings me to the end of my rant. I'll end with a question:
Do we blame the Legislators who write these bills or do we blame the citizens who continue ignoring these facts and reelecting those legislators?
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.
I tend to agree it's more often than not a political bargain, I just wish I could know for sure!
In terms of populism. I'm pretty much against any action that is driven by populist anger that lacks rational basis; it usually leads to bad policy in the long run.
I disagree about the reason behind taxing of medical device manufactures. I don't think there is a lot of populist rage against them, I think it's more directed at insurance companies and (but substantially less-so) pharmaceutical companies. I'm not sure that action is punitive, I think they are trying to find a way to finance the bill via taxation and that is more politically tolerable. By taxing medical devices companies, those companies may pass the costs onto consumers (more on that in a bit since it's pretty indirect); which is, all-things-equal, mine as well have just been a tax on consumers. However, voters won't view the legislators as being responsible for an indirect rise in their costs. I think that is more just a clever game to raise revenue without going after the consumer directly.
About the costs to consumers. This can be viewed in the context of Gravelle and Smetters work on corporate taxation. In general, only 30% of the cost increases will be passed onto the labor force and consumers; that's no small number, but often 70% of the cost increase via tax hikes is borne by a loss of domestic capital. In other words, because of how open the global economy is, large to medium size firms will often shift capital flows to other nations, which has the effect of reducing U.S. tax revenue and, quite obviously, jobs - the loss of jobs does more harm to the economy than the price hikes actually. That's why I actually support a complete re-working of our corporate tax structure. I guess I'm Republican-esque on this since I support reducing the rate enough such that is becomes more costly for companies to shift capital flows to foreign soils, so they will stay here. It has the effect of increasing productivity, increasing the job supply, and increasing the tax revenue.
But anyway, my point here. I'm not concerned about the scenario I just described above. The U.S. is actually one of the few countries with a specialized enough labor supply such that the manufacturing of fancy medical devices is a feasible industry, that's why we are largely responsible for all of the innovation. My primary fear is that because of that the redirection of capital flows to foreign soil will not be feasible, we'll just see a substantial drop in innovation (because new devices + tax hikes make the product less marketable, so it reduces incentive to create it) and a near 100% dump on our consumers in price hikes.
The case I described above I think it is definitely the Democrats not being familiar with the literature on this stuff more-so than trying to screw the consumer.
Oh, and I would hold politicians "responsible" more-so since many voters are not really equipped to understand complex issues (some politicians aren't).