DOT 173-08
Contact: Bill Mosley, Tel.: (202) 366-4570
Wednesday, December 10, 2008 

DOT Releases New, More Comprehensive Extended Tarmac Delay Data

Following up on a commitment to provide airline passengers better information about flights that experience the worst tarmac delays, the U.S. Department of Transportation today released new, comprehensive data that, for the first time, include extended runway times for flights that were later cancelled and for flights diverted to alternative airports, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters announced today.

“This new information will help the Department keep better track of the most onerous tarmac delays while providing flyers a valuable new resource to help them choose carriers and flights,” Secretary Peters said.

The Secretary noted that while carriers previously reported their taxi-out and taxi-in times, their reports did not include flights that were cancelled after having left the gate or were diverted to another airport before reaching their scheduled destinations. The new reporting rule requires the airlines that file on-time data to provide the Department’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics with information on all of their tarmac delays, she said.

The report shows that in October, only 0.0001 percent of scheduled flights by the 19 reporting airlines, a total of 50 flights, were delayed on the tarmac for three hours or more. A total of six flights out of 554,325 by the reporting carriers had tarmac delays of four hours or more. Three of the six flights were identified due to the new reporting requirements: one was later cancelled, one was diverted, and a third was reported because of an additional clarification in the reporting of multiple gate departures.

The new data is the latest in a series of efforts by the Department to address concerns about lengthy tarmac delays, following a number of incidents during the winter of 2006-2007 in which passengers were stranded on grounded planes for hours. In addition, the Department last month proposed a number of consumer protection measures, including a requirement that airlines adopt contingency plans for lengthy tarmac delays and incorporate them in their contracts of carriage.

In another recent effort to protect airline consumers, last month the Department raised the limits airlines may set on liability for lost baggage from $3,000 to $3,300 per passenger. The Department also raised the maximum civil penalty for most violations of aviation economic regulations and statutes, such as failure to make required refunds, from $25,000 to $27,500. The new limits will take effect Dec. 22.

The tarmac delay data were reported in today’s monthly Air Travel Consumer Report, available at http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov. Future reports will also include a section on tarmac delays based on the most recent reports from the airlines.

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