Airline tarmac delays increase in July

• Landing gear mishap on Southwest jet at LaGuardia caused major delays
• Airlines face stiff fines for delays

Airline passengers on 13 domestic flights and three international flights were stuck for lengthy delays on airport tarmacs in July, according to new data released by the U.S. Department of Transportation on Thursday.

Of the 13 domestic delays, 12 involved flights leaving New York's LaGuardia Airport on July 22, the day the front landing gear of a Southwest Airlines plane collapsed upon landing, forcing the airport to close temporarily.

The Transportation Department is investigating all 16 tarmac delays. Passengers are not allowed to be held on planes for more than three hours on domestic flights or for more than four hours on international flights without the option of getting off.

The government imposed limits on tarmac delays in April 2010 after passengers were stuck on planes for several hours in a series of incidents. Airlines face fines of up to $27,500 per passenger for breaking the rules. Exceptions to the time limits are made for safety, security, or air traffic-control related issues.

The number of lengthy delays dropped significantly after the rules were put in place, but there's been an uptick this year. From January to July, there were a total of 59 lengthy tarmac delays on domestic flights and six on international flights, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

From January to July 2012, there were 22 lengthy domestic tarmac delays and four international delays. In that same time period in 2011, there were 36 lengthy domestic delays.

Alan Bender, professor of Aeronautics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, says the increase in tarmac rule violations is probably due to bad weather, unexpected air traffic control issues and other factors beyond anyone's control.

Still, he called the increase "disconcerting."

"The number is still infinitesimal, a minute fraction of 1%, but it is worthy of investigation," he says. "The rule has been in effect for a few years now, and the number and size of fines has been relatively small...quite small. Carriers may feel that they will only get their wrists slapped if they violate the rule--even though the intention was to give them a punch in the gut."

The Transportation Department has defended the new rules, pointing out that tarmac delays were almost a regular occurrence before regulation was put in place. In 2009, the year before the new rules went into effect, there were 747 domestic tarmac delays.

So far this year, there have been five tarmac-delay fines totaling $620,000, up from last year's four fines totaling $455,000.

David Smallen, a spokesman for the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, says many of the this year's tarmac delays were caused by significant events. On Feb. 16 alone, there were 34 three-hour tarmac delays at Charlotte International Airport when it was hit by a snowstorm.

The 16 reporting carriers did do a better job of getting passengers to their destinations on time in July compared with the previous month, with 73.1% of their flights arriving on time in July, up from 71.9% the previous month. But that was a drop from the 76% of on-time flights in July 2012.

Robert Mann, president of R.W. Mann & Co., a New York-based airline industry consulting firm, says weather was probably the main culprit in the year-over-year drop.

"July saw quite a few heavy weather events affecting East Coast hubs, which drive Ground Delay Programs throughout the system," he says.

The carriers canceled 1.7% of their scheduled flights in July, down from 1.8% the previous month, but up from the 1.4% of flights canceled in July 2012.

There were 3.68 reports of mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers in July, down from June 2013's rate of 3.83. That was an increase from July 2012's rate of 3.52.

Bender says that travelers have been trying to avoid checking their bags as airlines have imposed fees. But many airline-branded credit cards now offer travelers the perk of a free checked bag.

"A free checked bag has become one of the major selling points of airline cards, so some people are checking bags again," he says.

Consumer complaints were down from last year. There were 1,295 consumer complaints against U.S. airlines in July of this year versus 2,056 complaints last July.

The most on-time airlines were Hawaiian Airlines, which benefits from mild weather, Alaska Airlines and SkyWest Airlines. The least on-time were JetBlue Airways, American Eagle Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines.