OAG Travel News

Getting stuck in an ultra-long ground delay is likely one of the top concerns of any frequent traveler. But, now, the traveling public may be about to get a better picture of just how severe such delays are. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram writes "airlines will soon be giving travelers more information on lengthy tarmac delays, which could help consumers hoping to avoid being stuck in an airplane during the next unexpected storm or operational meltdown." Currently, airlines give the feds data on "taxi-out time," or the amount of time a plane spends on the ground before take off. However, critics contend that data is misleading since it does not include information from canceled or diverted flights. 

But that's about to change. Dave Smallen, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics, tells the Star-Telegram that such data is expected to be included in federal reports beginning this December. "Passengers should know whether it will take as long for their flight to get to the runway as it will to land at their destination," Transportation Secretary Mary Peters says in a statement quoted by the Star-Telegram. "I hope we’ll get a much more factual idea of what's going on out there," says Kate Hanni, a passenger-rights activist who has been pushing for a federal "passenger bill of rights" that would guarantee fliers' protections -- including the right to food or water during long ground delays.

Still, even though it's tweaking that data it uses to detail long ground delays, government numbers indicate such delays remain relatively rare. "According to the Transportation Department, just 270 flights sat on the tarmac for more than three hours from January to April 2008," the Star-Telegram writes. And many of those long ground delays appear to be concentrated at delay-prone airports. The Star-Telegram notes that in August, for example, "16 of the 20 flights with the longest tarmac delays were departing from John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, according to the more limited data currently available." The month’s longest delay, though, was for an Aug. 10 flight on Delta subsidiary Comair that sat for 6 hours and 14 minutes before taking off from Raleigh/Durham for New York LaGuardia.

Source: www.usatoday.com by Ben Mutzabaugh