The Transportation Department responds to tarmac horror stories by ordering airlines to let passengers stuck in stranded airplanes to deplane after three hours.
With new regulations announced Monday, the Obama administration is sending an unequivocal message to airlines that it won’t tolerate the delays experienced by some passengers, such as an overnight ordeal in Rochester, Minn., last summer.
Under the new regulations, airlines operating domestic flights will be able only to keep passengers on board for three hours before they must be allowed to disembark a delayed flight. The regulation provides exceptions only for safety or security or if air traffic control advises the pilot in command that returning to the terminal would disrupt airport operations.
Now, the beauty of all this is, well, I’ll let you figure it out. Wanna guess who the flight controllers work for? I hope you guessed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The FAA is a federal agency. They are federal employees. Now, let’s get what happens as the way it is now straight. It is the Air Traffic Controllers who tell the airplanes whether to leave, sit, or come back. Not airline.
So, in order to make sure there are no more nightmare stories like the ones Obama heard when he was running for office, he’s punishing the airlines.
Got that?
He’s shooting the messenger.
Now, as the scenario stands, a federal employee can order an airplane to sit on a tarmac for six hours, and the airplane gets fined. The federal employee doesn’t. Try figuring where the incentive to make sure this doesn’t happen again is?
It doesn’t matter.
In his usual and customary socialist mentality, he’s punishing the private sector for something the federal government has screwed up.
So now I can’t wait to see what happens when an airplane, facing a three hour fine, turns around and returns to the terminal against the traffic controller’s orders. If I ran an airline, I’d have one do it tomorrow.
My solution’s a little different. Build more airports and re-build our train system.
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