United Airlines Gets First Tarmac Delay Fines

Federal officials penalized United Airlines $12,000 for over-reporting its May tarmac delays, even though the flights in question did not violate new rules aimed at eliminating nightmarish ground delays.

The fine is the first issued by Department of Transportation officials related to rules, which took effect April 29, mandating carriers provide passengers with food, water and the chance to exit before a tarmac delay hits the three-hour point. Airlines face fines of up to $27,500 per passenger, or $3 million for a typical Boeing or Airbus narrow-body jet, for any flight that doesn’t comply.

The United penalty is likely to add new fuel to the controversy over the three-hour limit, which was imposed amid intense lobbying by passenger-rights proponents. Airline executives, who sought a four-hour deadline, criticized the rules as arbitrary and warned they could spur greater numbers of flight cancellations.

“We are committed to providing fully accurate data to the (Transportation Department),” said United spokesman Rahsaan Johnson. “It is unfortunate that our effort to be fully transparent resulted in our inadvertently reporting four flight delays where we complied with regulations and with our own procedures to ensure the comfort and safety of our customers and employees.”

Chicago-based United operated four of the five flights that were reportedly delayed beyond the new limit in May. Delta Air Lines operated the fifth flight, which took off from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport two minutes after the three-hour cutoff point.

After thunderstorms halted takeoffs and landings at Denver International Airport on May 26, all four United flights were diverted to Colorado Springs, Colo., where foul weather caused additional delays, United spokeswoman Jean Medina told the Tribune in July. Tarmac delays for the flights ranged from 3 hours 10 minutes to 4 hours and 41 minutes, according to DOT data.

“All customers were offered the opportunity to exit the plane and were provided snacks and water as we waited for the weather to improve and air traffic control clearance to safely continue on to Denver,” Medina said.

However, United should have stopped the clock on the delays at the point where passengers were allowed to disembark, the Transportation Department determined in a Sept. 21 consent order. The carrier was penalized for reporting inaccurate data to the Transportation Department, which published the totals in its monthly Air Travel Consumer Report.

“United’s misreporting of this data wasted valuable Department resources,” said the consent order, since the department’s enforcement office initiated an investigation.

But United wasn’t the only carrier to misread the data reporting requirements. Delta reported a 182-minute delay for flight 2011 on May 28. Delta told the Tribune in July that air traffic controllers would not allow the plane to return to the terminal because of the threat of lightning, a permissible excuse for the delays under the new rules.

“The Department is looking into this delay and other reported 3-hour-plus delays,” said Bill Mosley, a Transportation Department spokesman, via email.

To avoid litigation, United agreed to pay half of the fine and to avoid similar clerical errors in the future. The carries will have to pay the additional $6,000 fine if it commits the error again over the next year.

“I suggest they pay the fine in pennies,” said aviation analyst Darryl Jenkins, a vocal critic of the new rules and author of a study suggesting that cancellations would soar above Transportation Department projections. Federal officials countered that his study was pre-mature and flawed since its results were based on one month’s data.

Henan Air Cancels All Flights After Crash in China

Henan Airlines, controlled by Air China Ltd., canceled all flights today after one of its aircraft crashed, killing at least 42 people in China’s first fatal commercial-plane accident in almost six years.

The move was reported by state-run Xinhua News Agency and confirmed by a Henan Air official, who declined to give her name when telephoned by Bloomberg News today. Neither said how long the suspension would last.

A Henan Air Embraer 190, carrying 96 people, broke in two and caught fire after overshooting the runway in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang at 9:36 p.m. yesterday, according to Xinhua. China last had a fatal commercial crash in 2004, as improving safety standards and the acquisition of modern planes helps the aviation industry cope with a threefold jump in passenger numbers over the past nine years.

“The safety record at most big Chinese airlines has been improving,” said Bai Bingyang, a Shanghai-based analyst at Capital Securities Corp. “Still, this will bring flight safety back into the limelight and may spur tougher inspections.”

Investigators have found the black box from the aircraft, according to Xinhua. The plane’s captain was among the 54 people who survived the crash, the news agency said. All survivors were injured, including seven in a severe condition, it said.

Vice Minister Sun Baoshu of the Human Resources and Social Security Ministry, was who onboard the plane, is in a critical state, the news agency said. The aircraft was also carrying 17 members of staff from the ministry, it reported, without saying how many in the group were killed.

First E-Jet Crash

Planemaker Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA has sent a team to help with the investigation, it said in a statement. The crash is the first fatal accident involving the Brazilian company’s E-Jet family of regional aircraft, according to a Flight Safety Foundation Website.

Henan Air had a fleet of five E-190s as of last month and it has ordered 50 ARJ-21 regional jets from Commercial Aircraft Corp. of China, according to Flight International’s World Airliner Census.

Tracy Chen, a spokeswoman for Embraer in Beijing and Huang Bin, a spokesman for Air China, declined to comment on the crash. Air China gained a controlling stake in Henan Air’s parent, Shenzhen Airlines, earlier this year.

Air China, the world’s largest airline by market value, fell 2.2 percent to 11.39 yuan in Shanghai trading today. In Hong Kong, the carrier dropped 2.8 percent to HK$8.44 as of 3:13 p.m. Embraer slid 3.9 percent to 10.42 reais yesterday in Sao Paulo.

Forested Valley

The 40-minute flight departed from the city of Harbin at 8:51 p.m. local time for Yichun city’s Lindu Airport, the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China said. The airport, in a forested valley about 9 kilometers (5.6 miles) from downtown Yichun, has been shut, the regulator said.

State broadcaster China Central Television’s news channel read out the names and the national identification card numbers of passengers killed in the crash during a broadcast today. Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang traveled to the crash site late yesterday, Xinhua reported.

The first E-190, which seats as many as 114 passengers, was delivered to JetBlue Airways Corp. in 2005, according to Embraer’s website. There are about 600 E-Jet family planes in operation, spread across 46 carriers in 30 countries, it said.

The Henan Air accident is China’s worst air disaster since a Bombardier Inc. CRJ-200 plane operated by China Eastern Airlines Corp. crashed into a frozen lake in Inner Mongolia shortly after takeoff in November 2004, killing 53 people onboard.

China airline passenger numbers rose 20 percent last year to 230 million, Xinhua said in January. That compares with 67.2 million in 2000. In the first seven months of this year, the number of travelers rose 18 percent to 151.8 million.

American Airlines Fined $25 million by FAA as Aircraft Maintenance Errors

Wall Street Journal reported, the FAA gave a fine $ 25 million to American Airlines for aircraft maintenance errors that will be used to flight services. Aircraft maintenance errors made by American Airlines caused many flight cancellations in 2008.

The fine, which would be the largest levied against a U.S. airline, is being viewed as FAA’s demand for strict maintenance compliance by airlines. According to the Journal, FAA had an initial consideration of as much as $100 million in penalty, which was rejected by senior officials.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal noted that American Airlines has not been officially informed about the case and an announcement is likely in the next few weeks.

In March 2008, Southwest Airlines Co.(LUV) was fined a $10.2 million by FAA for knowingly operating 46 Boeing 737s on 1,400 flights without performing mandatory structural inspections. The Airline negotiated and agreed to pay $7.5 million.

The airline was forced to temporarily ground its entire fleet of 300 McDonnell Douglas MD-80 jets for many days in 2008, due to an improperly fixed electrical wiring around landing gear of its plains. The Federal agency had noted that 280 of the jets were not in strict compliance. As per the law, FAA can consider a penalty of $25 thousand for each flight, the Journal said.

Further, the report noted that American Airlines would challenge the size of the penalty and negotiate for a settlement. A statement from the airline said that it “always maintained its aircraft to the highest standards.”

Ash Cloud Grounds Flights in Scotland And Ireland

A cloud of abrasive volcanic ash drifting south from Iceland disrupted flights to and from Ireland and Scotland anew on Wednesday.

Two airports serving Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, were closed until at least 1800 GMT, while flights from the Irish capital Dublin face restrictions until at least 2300 GMT.

The latest disruption signaled that travel hold-ups would continue into the summer holiday period because of ash being blown from the same volcano in Iceland that caused mayhem for 10 million travellers last month.

The European air traffic agency Eurocontrol said about 300 of 29,000 scheduled flights were likely to be canceled across Europe on Wednesday. “The situation is not expected to improve in this area during the day,” the agency said in a statement.
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Irish Airline Airport Reopen After Volcanic Ash Fades

The Irish Aviation Authority Tuesday said it would allow Irish airports to reopen at 1200 GMT after the volcanic ash cloud from an eruption in Iceland again caused some airport closures in the U.K. and Ireland.

Dublin, Shannon, Cork, Knock, Donegal, Waterford, Kerry, Galway and Sligo airports will all be allowed to fully reopen as ash concentrations are not expected to exceed new limits above which it could harm aircraft engines, the authority said. The airports were closed between 0600 GMT and 1200 GMT Tuesday as a precaution.

However, it cautioned that it will review the situation as the week goes on as winds are forecast to continue blowing from the north for the next few days and could lead to further problems.
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US Airways, Delta Lead Traffic Decline on Storm Cancellations

US Airways Group Inc. and Delta Air Lines Inc. led the six largest U.S. carriers to a 1.7 percent drop in February traffic as storms caused thousands of flight cancellations.

US Airways had the widest traffic decline at 4.7 percent, and said the storms reduced its revenue by about $30 million last month. UAL Corp.’s United Airlines said yesterday its traffic slid 0.5 percent in that time, and that the storms lowered revenue by $40 million.
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