Be wary of delays, safety issues during winter travel

By Richard N. Velotta

Friday, Dec. 10, 2010 | 3 a.m.

Thanksgiving and the December holidays are times when many people who fly infrequently climb aboard a plane in greater numbers for family reunions and winter vacations. It’s also the time of year when weather can really mess with a flight schedule.

This will be the first winter holiday in which new U.S. Transportation Department flight delay consumer protection policies are in effect.

The rules took effect last spring and give an airline three hours to get a flight off the ground from the time the door closes. The so-called “tarmac delay rule” fines an airline $27,500 per passenger. That’s about $3.8 million for a fully loaded Boeing 737, the type of aircraft that lands most frequently at McCarran International Airport.

It’s no secret that airlines are opposed to the rules, since most circumstances that lead to travel delays — bad weather, airport and air space congestion and unruly passengers — are beyond their control.

One unfortunate reality is that some airlines play fast and loose with their policies and that could lead to safety concerns.

I recently was contacted by a United Airlines crew member based in Nevada about an incident that occurred last month.

The crew member alleged that a Boeing 747 on a flight from Frankfurt, Germany, was delayed at the gate because of a weight-and-balance issue in the cargo hold. The flight was grounded for four hours before leaving for San Francisco.

Weight and balance are important because they affect the aircraft’s stability.

The crew member said the captain never made an announcement explaining the delay, further agitating the passengers.

The tarmac delay rule apparently never came into play because the door was never shut — and that’s when the clock starts — or because it was an American carrier operating in a foreign country on an international route. International carriers flying domestic routes in the United States and American carriers flying internationally are covered by the rules, but they’re different from carriers flying domestically in Europe or U.S. airlines flying from European destinations and are under European Union rules.

But the delay created a new issue: The flight crew had to work beyond its permitted maximum number of hours. That’s not a big problem in the cockpit, where a first officer can take over. It’s not uncommon on really long flights that two crews are assigned and the second crew takes over in midflight.

But in this case, some crew members worked 17 straight hours getting the plane from Frankfurt to San Francisco.

“I felt abused,” the crew member told me. “I felt like I was held hostage on the airplane. I can see why some people have gotten so upset about some of the delays. On my flight, people were starting to panic.”

The crew member indicated the matter might take the form of a workplace grievance to the union, so it might not be the last we’ve heard about it.

In the meantime, passengers should know how to address grievances they have with airlines and know what an airline can or can’t do. It also should be noted that these kinds of problems really don’t happen that often. The Associated Press reported in April that there were 903 delays of three hours or more last year out of 6.4 million. That means you have about a one in 7,143 chance of having a lengthy delay. (But there were 4,717 flights delayed between two and three hours. I’d say that’s pretty lengthy, too).

Incidentally, most delays are caused by weather, but it may not necessarily be the weather you’re experiencing on the drive to the airport. Many flights to or from McCarran have been delayed by bad weather on the East Coast or in the Midwest. A carrier that flies a lot of point-to-point routes such as Southwest Airlines, the busiest airline at McCarran, could have delays resulting from a snowstorm in Chicago.

The best policy is to check your flight before you go to the airport to see if it is arriving and departing on time.

Once you’re on board, that’s when tarmac-delay issues can occur.

If you’re one of the unlucky ones who experiences a tarmac delay or if your airline loses your bag or if you have any other consumer complaint, what do you do next?

The Transportation Department has a form online for consumer complaints. It can be accessed at airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/escomplaint/es.cfm.

The Federal Aviation Administration is more interested in safety issues than consumer complaints. If you’re on a flight like the one I described from Frankfurt to San Francisco, you can call an FAA hotline at 866-TELL-FAA or 866-835-5322).

You can also write the FAA at Assistant Administrator for System Safety ASY-100, Federal Aviation Administration, 800 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, D.C. 20591.

Finally, there’s a fantastic online clearinghouse of information called airsafe.com. Developed by Todd Curtis, an aviation safety analyst, author and publisher, airsafe.com not only provides articles about safe travel, but it offers consumer advice about flying, including a section dedicated to fear of flying. It also has an online complaint form that doesn’t ask for as much personal information as the Transportation Department form at airsafe.com/complain/complain.htm.

The website also has a database and narrative on every major airline accident, explaining what happened and breaking it down by aircraft type.

Allegiant union vote

A vote is under way at Allegiant Air for the company’s flight attendants to be represented by the Transportation Workers Union of America, and the union is capitalizing on the success of its efforts with flight attendants at Southwest Airlines to sell the idea.

The National Mediation Board, which supervises union elections in the airline industry, began mailing ballots to Allegiant flight attendants last week, with instructions for telephone and Internet voting. Ballots are expected to be counted Dec. 22.

In addition to a leaflet program at McCarran and five other airports where Allegiant has a large presence, the union has recruited Southwest flight attendants who formerly worked at Allegiant to boost the vote.

Southwest, one of the most profitable airlines, has one of the top pay scales for flight attendants.

Allegiant also has been profitable, using a different revenue-generation formula than Southwest. Although the company has not publicly commented much on the union effort, sources say it is working to thwart union representation.

Aeromexico rebounds

Grupo Aeromexico, the company that operates Aeromexico, announced last week it has addressed safety issues raised by Mexican aviation authorities and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, resulting in the return of nonstop flights between Mexico City and Las Vegas.

On Dec. 6, reinstated service to Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles and Las Vegas and started flights to New York. The airline will have two daily Las Vegas flights on its permanent schedule, converting what had been seasonal service on one of those trips.

The new Las Vegas flight leaves Mexico City at 8:05 p.m., arriving at McCarran at 10:10 p.m. The return flight leaves Las Vegas at 11:20 p.m., arriving in Mexico City the next day at 5:05 a.m. All times are local.

Aeromexico also announced that it would reinstate its 45 daily code-share flights with Delta Air Lines on Dec. 11.

Aeromexico has been trying to expand its fleet and routes to pick up the slack left by Mexicana Airlines, which filed for bankruptcy and discontinued operations in August.