Thaindian News

Mar 10 (THAINDIAN NEWS) A new rule which was made by the Department of Transportation will go into effect on April 29. This rule demands that any airline which keeps a plane full of people stuck on the tarmac for over 3 hours will face up to $27,500 for each passenger on board. This can bring some very hefty fines, for example, if a fully loaded Boeing 737 were on the tarmac for over three hours, the fines would add up to $3.5 million.

Now Delta Airlines, as well as JetBlue are begging release and requesting to be “the exception to the rule.” These airlines are saying that their main concern is the construction underway at New York’s JFK Airport could cause them to have millions of dollars in fines. This is because the main runway at this airport has been closed due to the construction. It was closed on March 1st, and is already causing serious delays.

Delta and JetBlue are the largest airlines which use JFK Airport, which was named among the worst in the country last year. In just the month on December, 2009, there were 22 flight nationwide which were delayed for over three hours from gate to departure. The Department of Transportation says that this is unacceptable and unnecessary.

Since May is the peak of the travel season, and also the first full month that the rule will be in effect, the airlines have cut their schedules back by almost 10% until the runways re open in July. One third of JFK’s incoming flights and half of the outgoing flights have been diverted to three smaller runways. According the the Federal Aviation Administration, the delays at JKF should not be longer than 50 minutes at peak times.