Feds punish tarmac delays, airlines cancel flights instead

by Walter Olson on February 17, 2010

Are consumers as a group better off? [Tony Santaella, WLTX/USA Today via Carpe Diem]

Update Mar. 10: Continental, American announce similar cuts.

Tagged as: airlines

{ 6 comments }

1 SmartDude 02.17.10 at 1:18 pm: An unmitigated disaster for those passengers who want a flight, even if delayed.
2 L Nettles 02.17.10 at 4:09 pm: I vote for better off, canceled rather than trapped.
3 E-Bell 02.17.10 at 4:42 pm: Me too, SmartDude. I’d rather know my flight’s canceled than sit on the tarmac for 6 hours before finding out it’s canceled anyway.

I got caught up in the US Air Christmas Eve “sick-out” a few years ago and we boarded the plane, sat on the tarmac for a couple of hours, then got taxi’d back to the terminal where we waited for a couple more hours to figure out exactly what was going on. I could’ve used that time to find alternative arrangements.
4 E-Bell 02.17.10 at 4:43 pm: Whoops, I meant to address my comment to L Nettles, not SmartDude.
5 MF 02.17.10 at 7:51 pm: Bottom line is that it’s absurd for the government to be involved in punishing the airlines. Let the market decide which carriers act responsibly and which ones don’t.
6 Brian, follower of Deornoth 02.18.10 at 5:25 am: “Are consumers as a group better off?”

Of course they are. The government in its wisdom has decided that it is better for your flight to be cancelled than be severely delayed, and we all know that the government knows better than you do what is good for you.

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