Daily Dose of Common Sense

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Just not when I want to travel.

You’ve probably heard about the 2,000 or so folks stuck in the Chunnel for 16 hours on Friday. No heat, no food, no water, no bathrooms. For SIXTEEEN hours. Doesn’t it seem incomprehensible that any person would be forced to endure these conditions in this day and age? After 4 or 5 hours, you think someone would have come up with a solution to get those people out of there. Or, at least found a way to get them food, water, and blankets.

Remember the Jet Blue incident a few years ago where passengers were left sitting on a runway for over 10 hours? They were so close to the terminal but no one was allowed to get off the plane. Again, this was during an intense winter storm.

Delays beyond three hours are rare and occur in extreme circumstances, usually during peak travel days in the winter, when extreme weather can have a huge impact on scheduling.

Over the 2008-09 winter period, U.S. airlines reported 373 tarmac delays in excess of three hours, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

So, the good news is that the DOT has just mandated that the maximum length passengers can be confined in a plane on the runway is 3 hours. It seems pathetic that we needed the government to get involved in this no-brainer. But, airlines see us as little more than cattle. In fact, they are complaining that a 3-hour cap is going to cause “more cancelled flights and greater passenger inconvenience.”

Yeah, because sitting for 10 hours on a runway isn’t inconvenient for us AT ALL.

I would much rather have my flight cancelled or rescheduled than sit on the runway for a few hours. Wouldn’t you?

Photo: Carl Court / AFP/Getty Images / December 19, 2009

This entry was posted on Monday, December 21st, 2009 at 10:06 pm and is filed under General, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.