Airlines Can No Longer Keep Passengers Hostage or Prisoner
This often frustrated traveler and airline safety attorney sends kudos to the Department of Transportation who responded to tarmac horror stories by ordering federal airlines to let passengers stuck in stranded airplanes to deplane after three hours. Under the new regulations, airlines operating domestic flights will be only able to keep passengers onboard for three hours before they must be allowed to disembark. The regulation provides exceptions only for safety and security or if air traffic control advises the pilot in command that returning to the terminal would disrupt airport operations. Airlines will now be required to provide food and water for passengers within two hours of a plane being delayed on a tarmac and maintain an operable lavatory. They must also provide medical attention when necessary.
From January to June of 2009, 613 planes were delayed on tarmacs for more than three hours with their passengers kept onboard. These regulations will go into effect within 120 days from Monday, December 21, 2009. The airlines have strongly opposed a hard limit on tarmac strandings and predict in their own inimitable fashion that flights will be canceled, further delaying passengers from reaching their destinations. Indications are that airlines will be fined $27,500 per passenger over the three hour maximum limit set.
My wife, son and I were once kept “falsely imprisoned” on an airplane for over six hours with an inoperable lavatory with no food or water and Gestapo type stewardesses yelling at people to remain in their seats.
If you or a loved one has been subject to breach of airline safety or sustained an accident while on an airplane or in an airport, please feel free to contact one of our experienced airline and airport safety lawyers at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com.
