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Latest Ice Storm Chips Away at Travelers' Patience

By Dan Schlossberg
ConsumerAffairs.com

March 18, 2007

• Customer Satisfaction with Airports Dives • Airlines Hit Seven-Year Low In Satisfaction • Feds Propose Air Travel Improvements • Appeals Court Rejects NY Passengers Rights Law • Feds Unveil New Airport Policy • Newark Delays Trigger Passenger Rights Bill in NJ • Continental Passengers Fume Over New Tarmac Ordeal • American Strands Another Planeload of Passengers • Congress Wary of Airline Promises • Air Travelers Association Opposes Passenger Bill of Rights • Latest Ice Storm Chips Away at Travelers' Patience • U.S. Air Travel System at the Breaking Point • Long Tarmac Delays Still Common • Winter Weather Wreaks Havoc with United Flights • Feds Want Probe of Airline Strandings • Airline Passenger Bill Of Rights Introduced In Senate • JetBlue Sits Out NY Storm While Others Fly • JetBlue Unveils "Passengers Bill Of Rights" • JetBlue Offers Refunds, Free Tickets To Stranded Passengers • Passengers Organize After American Airlines Stranding --- • More about Travel ...

As the ice from Friday's Nor'easterer melts away, airline horror stories are slowly working their way to the surface.

In West Palm Beach, passengers and luggage already loaded onto a United flight to White Plains, N.Y. were taken off after a plane skidded off the ice-slicked White Plains runway, forcing the airfield to close. Because the event happened on a Friday during spring break, passengers were told they could start rescheduling flights in three days.

Not far away, several planes at New York's John F. Kennedy International were idled on the tarmac for hours while ice pellets pounded the tarmac.

A Cathay Pacific plane bound for Vancouver left its gate at midnight Friday but returned only after the flight was cancelled at 9:30 the following morning. The airline blamed the problem on lack of fluid in de-icing equipment. Such equipment is supplied by airlines rather than airports.

A Virgin Atlantic flight from London, diverted from Boston, sat on the JFK tarmac for six hours before it could complete its trip. It reached Boston at 4 a.m. -- nine-and-a-half hours after its scheduled arrival time.

Trouble Travels Fast

Particularly vexing to travelers is the way delays in one part of the country can spread rapidly, causing unexplained delays elsewhere. While East Coast flights were socked in, some travelers in the West found themselves mysteriously delayed this weekend.

Diane of Bothell, Washington, complained that her hsuband was stranded in Las Vegas when his Alaska Airlines flight sat on the runway for hours. The flight was supposed to leave at 1 p.m. but sat on the tarmac "for hours in poor air quality and no beverages."

"Then they herded them off to tell him the soonest he would be able to fly out was at 10pm -- his only other option was to book with another airlines on his own, too bad his ticket was non refundable," Diane fumed.

In addition to communications, baggage handling also remains a major problem for carriers. A passenger traveling from Palm Beach International to Rapid City, S.D. March 16 had to beg an AirTran ticket agent to transfer her bag to United Airlines in Denver. The agent insisted the two carriers had no interline agreement -- even though the same transfer had been made in the other direction two weeks earlier.

The latest incidents added to a litany of weather-related woes that peaked on Feb. 14 when nine JetBlue planes sat on the JFK tarmac for at least six hours each. The Kennedy-based carrier, opting on the side of caution, cancelled 75 per cent of its flights Friday and diverted some of the others away from airports most affected by the adverse weather conditions.

Passengers trapped on airport tarmacs, angry that planes could not or would not return to gates in lingering storms, have demanded that Congress pass a Passenger Bill of Rights.

JetBlue, hoping to stave off governmental interference, has already imposed its own, retroactive to its Feb. 14 fiasco. Other airlines are expected to follow that lead.

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