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We often hear stories about airplane nightmares, from the classic and prevalent “lost baggage” issue to the fantastical “Snakes on a Plane” movie. A few weeks ago, a whopper of a nightmare ignited debate: Passengers aboard a Continental Airlines flight were stuck on the tarmac of Rochester, Minn., for six whole hours.
That’s six hours in a cramped airplane with babies, no refreshments and an overwhelmed toilet. An AP article called the incident “surreal” and said it “could give a lift to legislation” designed to combat such lengthy stays on the tarmac.
It wasn’t long before there were cries for a Passengers’ Bill of Rights. Passenger-right advocates, speaking for passengers much like Ralph Nader, speak for consumers, jumped right on the issue and away we went.
“More regulation! More laws! More government control of airlines!” The cries go, “we can’t trust airlines!”
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N. D.), chairman of the aviation operations subcommittee, said of the incident, “There needs to be some common sense used in these cases.”
Sen. Dorgan, I agree. The calls for a “fix” came far before the facts of the incident were weighed, so why don’t we look at the evidence now that we have the benefit of hindsight? Let’s see where common sense failed.
Why would Continental shoot themselves in the foot by leaving passengers stranded on a tarmac for 6 hours? Well, it took a chain of events to reach that point.
First: There were thunderstorms preventing landing at Minneapolis - not Continental’s fault.
Second: Dispatchers decided to wait out the storm and leave the plane at Rochester - makes sense. Thunderstorms don’t usually last long enough to cause a serious delay. Freaks of weather like what struck Minneapolis that night aren’t something you can plan for.
Third: They couldn’t leave the plane at night because that would have required getting rechecked through security and security had already left for the night - sounds like the government’s fault. Our nation’s beloved, draconian security measures cause enough problems when things are going right at the airport, and they really screwed over these passengers.
Fourth: When the plane finally did get clearance to take off, the flight crew had been working longer than allowed by federal laws, so a new crew had to be flown in - why, that sounds like the government meddling again.
Fifth: At 6 a.m., when security was back for the day, the passengers were allowed onto the terminal. It then took two-and-one-half hours to re-board them onto the same plane and get them in the air for Minneapolis - security was really on top of it that day, you can tell.
In the aftermath, there was a lot of finger pointing at Continental and ExpressJet Airlines, the carrier in charge of that flight. Although the passengers could have been kept in a secured portion of the terminal and not be forced to deal with security, the ground crew did not know this. They were certain that government regulations required security personnel to be present.
Once again, we have the vast morass of government regulations causing confusion and delay. The Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001 and the portion of the U.S. Code pertaining to aviation combine to total 394 pages. That’s not something that ground crews are ever going to know back-to-front. The huge bureaucracies of the Transportation Security Authority and the Federal Aviation Administration make their own pronouncements and deals in addition to the legislation, making airlines one of the most regulated businesses in the United States.
With all of this government, we still have passengers stuck on the tarmac for 6 hours. Maybe it is time to consider that the government has a lot more responsibility for this incident than the airline does.
Airlines in a free market just don’t do these kind of things. Airlines in a regulated market get forced to.
