"Airlines may be fined for chronically late flights"

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Airlines may be fined for chronically late flights
Government considers penalties for deceptive business practices
The Associated Press


WASHINGTON - Airlines that operate chronically delayed flights could face
stiff fines in the coming weeks as the U.S. government concludes a six-month
investigation into potentially deceptive business practices.

The Transportation Department in May began investigating flights that are at
least 15 minutes late more than 70 percent of the time, and so far has
identified 26 that meet those criteria, an agency spokesman said Tuesday.

If any of those 26 flights also were delayed in the most recent quarter
being reviewed, the responsible airlines will face "significant financial
penalties," agency spokesman Brian Turmail said. Results of the
investigation are expected within weeks.

The commercial airlines trade group criticized the government's possible
penalties.

"We're disappointed that they're taking this course of action given the
effort by industry to significantly reduce delays," said David Castelveter,
spokesman for the Air Transport Association.

"No one has greater incentive to move its flights on-time than the
airlines," Castelveter said, because they cost the industry $6 billion per
year and it means "we fail our customers." But the answer is not eliminating
flights from the chronically delayed list, which are there based on customer
demand, he added.

The Federal Aviation Administration handles roughly 85,000 flights per day,
a number predicted to reach more than 111,000 daily flights by 2020.

But delays this summer reached record levels. The Transportation Department
earlier this month said more than 25 percent of domestic flights arrived
late between January and August - easily the industry's worst performance
since comparable data began being collected in 1995.

In August alone, 23 flights were late at least 90 percent of the time and
more than 100 flights were late at least 80 percent of the time. Almost half
of Atlantic Southeast Airlines' flights were delayed, and two arrived late
every time they took off.

Kristen Loughman, a spokeswoman for the Delta Connection carrier owned by
SkyWest Inc., said the company was not aware of any fines being considered
by the government. Any Atlantic Southeast flight on the Transportation
Department's monthly report of delays becomes its top priority to fix, she
added.

Other airlines that operated flights that were late at least 90 percent of
the time in August were: ExpressJet Holdings Inc., which flies regional
service for Continental Airlines Inc.; SkyWest Inc.; AirTran Holdings Inc.;
Delta Air Lines Inc. and its subsidiary Comair Inc.

Also Tuesday, federal aviation regulators opened a two-day summit aimed at
fixing "epidemic" delays at New York's John F. Kennedy International
Airport.

The latest government proposal for reducing congestion at JFK, which had the
worst on-time departure record of any major U.S. airport through August, is
to reduce the hourly flight limit by 20 percent.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters repeated the government's desire for
airlines to voluntarily change their summer 2008 flight schedules in order
to alleviate record delays at JFK and other airports, but also reiterated
that schedule reduction mandates remain an option.

Peters said she has "high hopes for market-based incentives," including
raising landing fees for airlines during peak periods, to help reduce record
delays at JFK and elsewhere.

But airlines say that so-called "congestion pricing" approach would simply
result in higher fares and pledged to challenge mandates for it, or mandated
schedule cuts, in court or legislatively.

Other recommendations for reducing airline delays are due by Dec. 10 from an
aviation rules committee made up of airline executives, government officials
and aviation groups. The scheduling summit is being carried out in parallel
to that process and FAA officials expect a series of one-on-one meetings
with airlines to continue through early December.

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