A study by two consultants released this week purporting to show a disruptive impact on the flying public because of the Transportation Department's new tarmac-delay rules has sparked a firestorm in the industry, causing the DOT to take the rare step of publicly denouncing the report.
The DOT enacted new rules on April 29 that require airlines to return to the gate and offer passengers a chance to get off aircraft once a plane has been stuck on the tarmac for three hours.
Airlines said the new rules would cause more cancellations, and the data for May, the first full month the new rules were in effect, showed the carriers were right.
The report, "Impact of Three-Hour Tarmac Delay Rules and Fines on Passenger Travel Time and Welfare," done by Darryl Jenkins of the Airline Zone website and Joshua Marks of the Marks Aviation consultancy, said the DOT wasn't even close in predicting the number of extra flight cancellations caused by the new rules.
"The study, conducted by two business consultants for aviation companies, offers a misleading and premature assessment of the impact of the new passenger protections," the DOT said in a public statement.
"The study released today, based on one month of airline on-time data in May 2010, is far too narrow to yield defensible conclusions about future airline trends," the DOT said.
"Further, the data reported in May 2010 does not support the industry consultants' claims about rising numbers of airline cancellations. While there was a slight increase in airline cancellations in May 2010 compared with May 2009, an analysis of May cancellations over the last 15 years shows that cancellations in May 2010 were below average.
"In fact, the rate of airline cancellations in May 2010 was below the average rate for all 15 previous Mays with comparable data: 1.24% in May 2010 compared to the average of 1.51%."
Jenkins said one month's data is plenty to show how the rule has led to more cancellations.
The DOT predicted the new rule would result in 41 additional cancellations a year. But in May, Jenkins and Marks said, airlines "cancelled hundreds of flights due to the rule."
"It's only going to get worse," Jenkins predicted. "We're coming into June and July, and they have been the worst months. It's already worse than what the DOT predicted."
This report appears in the July 26 issue of Travel Weekly.
