There were only 20 ground delays of three hours or more between May 2010 and April 2011, compared to 693 in the prior year, according to the DOT. That's absolutely true, and there was no question that long ground delays would disappear with the threat of fines of up to $27,500 per passenger in place. What the department doesn't make clear, however, is the very significant impact on cancellations.  The DOT cherry picks the numbers that help its cause while ignoring the rest. From its press release:  ... the number of canceled flights with tarmac delays of more than two hours -- those most likely to be canceled to avoid violating the rule -- increased only slightly, from 336 between May 2009 and April 2010 to 387 between May 2010 and April 2011.  As they say, you can make statistics say whatever you want, and that's exactly what the DOT has done. Using Bureau of Transportation Statistics data, I see that this is warped dramatically.  Those numbers are right, but they don't take into account the number of flights that were delayed that long in the first place. In the year ending April 2011, there were 3,386 flights with a two-plus hour ground delay, meaning 11.4% were canceled.  However, in the prior year, there were a whopping 5,328 flights in that same position. Only 6.3% of those were canceled, so flights with long ground delays were just about twice as likely to cancel this year versus last.  But, wait. Isn't it a good thing that ground delays were down so much? Sure, in theory. Nobody wants to be stuck on the ground for that long anyway. But this wasn't just a wholesale improvement in the way airlines operate precipitated by the rule. The airlines had to change the way they operated and that meant canceling more flights in advance, a number the DOT conveniently ignores in its recent press release.
It's been more than a year since the so-called tarmac delay rule went into effect, promising hefty fines for flights that sit on the ground away from the gate for more than three hours.The