Seven Puppies Die after American Airlines Flight

3 August 2010; Chicago, IL: Seven puppies that had arrived from Tulsa, OK died while they were waiting for a connecting flight from Chicago. American Airlines is investigating why the puppies died, and it is unclear what role weather at Tulsa and Chicago may have played. American Airlines flight 851 left Tulsa Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. and arrived in Chicago at 8:54 a.m. The temperature in Tulsa was about 86 degrees Fahrenheit at 7 a.m. and 87 degrees at 8 a.m. It was cooler in Chicago, with a temperature of about 70 when the flight landed. It did not reach 80 degrees in Chicago until about 1 p.m.

There were 14 puppies of an unknown breed on the flight, and a spokesperson for American Airlines stated that the puppies were alive when the flight arrived, and were taken to an American facility at O'Hare while they waited for their connecting flight.

Previous Incidents
Since May 2005, the US Department of Transportation has required airlines to report deaths of animals during transport. From May 2005 to May 2010, 122 dogs have died in flight or while in the airline's control on the ground. Of these 122 dogs, 16 were of mixed or unknown breeds.

Temperature Limits for Animals
Airlines can't accept dogs and cats for shipment if the airline cannot prevent exposure of the animal to temperatures less than 45 degrees F (7.2 C) or more than 85 degrees F (29.5 C) for more than 45 minutes when the animal is transferred between the terminal and the plane, or for more than four hours when the animal is in a holding facility. It is unclear of the high temperature limits were exceeded either in Tulsa or Chicago.

Additional Information
AirSafe.com provides extensive advice for traveling by air with your pet, including guidelines on what pets are allowed in the passenger cabin, rules on service animals in the cabin, and common airline restrictions for transporting animals in the cabin or in the cargo compartment.

Photo credit: jmatthew3

Note: The pugs in the photo were not the puppies on the flight, but short-snouted breeds like pugs represented about half the purebred dogs in the DOT list of dogs that died in the airline's custody.

New Tarmac Delay Rules Have Large Loopholes

As of today, new Department of Transportation rules require most airlines operating in the US to allow passengers the opportunity to get off an aircraft after three hours of a tarmac delay. Large airlines can be fined up to $27,500 for each violation. While this new rule will literally be a great relief for many delayed passengers, significant loopholes may keep some passengers from being helped by the new rules.

Basics of the new rules
According to the DOT, US airlines operating domestic flights may not permit an aircraft to remain on the tarmac at large and medium hub airports for more than three hours without deplaning passengers, with exceptions allowed only for safety or security reasons or if air traffic control advises the flight crew that returning to the terminal would disrupt airport operations.

US carriers operating international flights departing from or arriving in the United States must specify, in advance, their own time limits for deplaning passengers, with the same exceptions applicable. Non-US carriers operating a code share flight with a US carrier must comply with these rules (though other non-US carriers do not have to comply).

Carriers are required to provide adequate food and potable drinking water for passengers within two hours of the aircraft being delayed on the tarmac and to maintain operable lavatories and, if necessary, provide medical attention.

Loophole for smaller airports
The new rule leaves airlines quite a few opportunities to keep passengers on the tarmac for more than three hours. One of the loopholes is implied by the DOT specifying the the rule applies to "large and medium hub airports." Deep inside a DOT document about these new rules were both the definitions of a large and medium hub airport, and the fact that only 69 airports meet one of these definitions (see below). Given that there are about 450 airports in the US offering airline service, a significant fraction of passengers may be forced to stay on an aircraft well past the three hour mark.

• Large hub airports: ATL, BOS, BWI, CLT, DCA, DEN, DFW, DTW, EWR, FLL, HNL, IAD, IAH, JFK, LAS, LAX, LGA, MCO, MIA, MSP, ORD, PHL, PHX, SAN, SEA, SFO, SLC and TPA
  
  
• Medium hub airports: ABQ, ANC, AUS, BDL, BNA, BUF, BUR, CLE, CMH, CVG, DAL, HOU, IND, JAX, MCI, MDW, MEM, MHT, MKE, MSY, OAK, OGG, OKC, OMA, ONT, ORF, PBI, PDX, PIT, PVD, RDU, RNO, RSW, SAT, SDF, SJC, SJU, SMF, SNA, STL and TUS

The rule would not have helped these passengers
There was a recent extreme tarmac delay event were it appears that the passengers would not have been eligible for the benefits of this new rule. Last month, a Virgin America flight from Los Angeles to New York took about an extra 12 hours to complete, including about four hours waiting on the tarmac at Stewart International airport in Newburgh, NY airport. This airport (SWF) was definitely not in the list of large or medium hub airports.

Two lavatory loopholes
There are two separate loopholes concerning the availability of lavatories. First, the requirement to have access to a lavatory during a tarmac delay does not apply to aircraft that don't have a lavatory. Also, some aircraft with a single lavatory are allowed to fly in some circumstances without an operating lavatory. So long as the airline informs passengers before the flight, the airline would not be in violation of the new rules of that aircraft were involved in a tarmac delay of up to three hours. Review the DOT FAQ document for additional details.

What is adequate food and water?
Within that same DOT document of FAQs about these new rules was a discussion of what qualifies as adequate food and water. While the DOT does not expect airlines to provide full meal service, the document did say that a granola bar or an individual pack of snack food, along with a 12 ounce bottle of water, would be sufficient.

What should you do to prepare for a delay?
It spite of the new rules, it is clear that a passenger may still experience a tarmac delay where there is no access to a lavatory, food, or sufficient water. While a delay may be inconvenient, it does not have to be uncomfortable. Taking the following basic steps on every flight should keep your bad experience from turning into a terrible one:

• Keep all prescription medicine and other essential medical supplies with you in your carry on bag.
  
  
• Bring along a snack or a small meal in your carry on bag.
  
  
• If you have a medical exemption that allows you to bring liquids through security, do so.
  
  
• If you are traveling with an infant or small child, TSA will allow you to carry baby formula, breast milk, juice or water through security.
  
  
• If you don't have a medical exemption, buy a bottle of water or juice after you go through security and before you get on the airplane.
  
  
• Visit tsa.airsafe.org for a list of additional exemptions for liquids.

Additional resources
Airlines with 3+ hour delays 2008-2009
How to complain to your airline

Photo Credit: Matthew and Tracie

US Government Proposes Compensation and Other Requirements for Passengers Delayed Three Hours or More

Yesterday, the US Transportation Department announced new limits on how long airline passengers will be forced to wait in planes stuck on the airport tarmac. The key changes, which are scheduled to go into effect about four months after the rule is published in the Federal Register, include the following:

• Planes must return to the terminal if the delay exceeds three hours.
  
  
• Requires airlines to display on their web site the flight delay information for each domestic flight they operate.
  
  
• Requires air carriers to adopt contingency plans for lengthy tarmac delays and to publish those plans on their web sites.
  
  
• Carriers are required to provide adequate food and potable drinking water for passengers within two hours of the aircraft being delayed on the tarmac and to maintain operable lavatories and, if necessary, provide medical attention.

There are some exceptions for security reasons and if air traffic control orders the crew to not return to the terminal. More details are available in the

History of These Rule Changes
These rule changes didn't happen because of the recent snowstorm in the northeast US last week, but because of numerous severe delay incidents over the last several years, including an August 2009 event where Continental Airlines, ExpressJet Airlines and Mesaba Airlines were fined a total of $175,000 for stranding passengers on an aircraft for nearly six hours.

Related AirSafeNews.com Articles
Delays of Three Hours or Longer from January to August 2009
Databases That Track Long Tarmac Delays.

Airlines Fined for Stranding Passengers Plus The Best Passenger Safety Briefing Ever

Three Airlines Fined for Stranding Passengers Overnight
Earlier this year on August 8th, Continental Express Flight 2816, which was en route from Houston to Minneapolis and carrying 47 passengers, was diverted to Rochester, Minnesota because of thunderstorms where it landed about 12:30 am. The passengers and crew ended up stranded on the aircraft for over seven hours because the terminal had already closed for the night, and the employees who could have opened the terminal refused to do so.

This event attracted national attention at the time, and the US Department of Transportation (DOT) announced yesterday that it would impose $175,000 in fines on the three airlines involved. Continental Airlines and its regional airline partner ExpressJet, which operated the flight for Continental, were each fined $50,000. Mesaba Airlines, which was responsible for operating the terminal at Rochester, Minnesota, was fined $75,000.

This was the first time that the DOT has fined airlines for stranding passengers on the tarmac, but by no means was this the first time that passengers have been stuck on the tarmac for long periods of time. Earlier this month, AirSafeNews.com had an article about the delay statistics made available by the DOT's Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

The Best Passenger Safety Briefing Ever
When it comes to preflight passenger safety briefings, most passengers have sat through many of them, and most of them are not the least bit entertaining or memorable. The FAA does not dictate what information airlines should provide passengers during the preflight safety briefing. However, the FAA provides general guidance in Advisory Circular 121-24C, where one of the suggestions is that "The pretakeoff oral briefing should be given so that each passenger can clearly hear it and easily see required demonstrations. Flight attendants giving these briefings should speak slowly and distinctly."

Flight attendant David Holmes of Southwest Airlines created a preflight passenger briefing that ignored the advice about speaking slowly, and was both entertaining and memorable.

National Geographic Traveler published an extensive interview with David Holmes where he talked about his in-flight rapping. The following question and answer is the highlight of that interview.

National Geographic Traveler - The Federal Aviation Administration has some pretty strict requirements about in-flight safety announcements. How did you ensure that you met those, while still maintaining your artistic integrity?

David Holmes - Everything we have to say is carefully scripted for us -- all the safety information. As you know, one challenge is getting people to listen -- the other is making sure they have all the info. Why shouldn't it be fun?

Why not indeed.

Airline Safety and Aging Aircraft - Why Flying in an Older Plane May Not Be Unsafe

As part of the AirSafeNews.com's ongoing effort to show you what goes on behind the scenes, this article highlights one of the many questions that Dr. Curtis and AirSafe.com get asked about various airline safety issues. The following questions were asked of Dr. Curtis by a travel magazine in August 2009. We hope that the questions and the answers address some of your concerns as well.

Question 1
Would it be accurate to say that it's hard to imagine that planes get safer as they age?

Response
Thanks for taking the time to write to me. As for your questions, the first one is a bit more involved than it would first seem. To make a long story short, as a plane gets older, specifically the kinds of aircraft that are used in airline service in the US, Canada, and other countries with a similar high level or regulatory requirements, it becomes more expensive to maintain and to keep an aircraft in airline
operations. Part of this is due to the normal wear and tear that any complex machine would face with regular use. Part of it is also due to evolving requirements.

Over time, the number of requirements for airliners tend to go up rather than down, and some of these changes may require a retrofit of an aircraft. Depending on the change, it could be much more expensive to change an existing aircraft than it would be to incorporate changes into new aircraft.

On the one hand, over time an older airliner aircraft will likely face fewer risks because changing requirements, plus the collective experience of the aviation community, tend to reduce the likelihood of some dangerous conditions as well as reduce the potential for physical risks faced by passengers and crew. On the other hand, newer aircraft designs would in most cases already have the changes incorporated into the design and may have additional changes that were not mandated by the authorities but may have been included by the manufacturers because those changes makes the aircraft easier or cheaper to operate while at the same time reducing the likelihood of conditions that could lead to accidents.

If an aircraft is flying in a country with weak or nonexistent regulatory oversight, older aircraft will likely not have the kinds of changes and improvements that would be required in places such as the US, Japan, Australia, or the EU, and would likely be more of a risk than a newer aircraft flying in the same country.

Question 2
We're also curious about how old a plane can get in the U.S. before the FAA or DOT believes it is at an increased likelihood of being unsafe - do you have any idea on when this is?

Your second question is also not as easy to answer as it may seem. In short, there is no FAA age limit for airplanes. So long as the the aircraft operator is following the proper regulations and procedures and the airplane has been properly maintained and has passed the appropriate inspections, an airline can fly a plane of any age.

As far as whether the FAA thinks that older aircraft have an increased likelihood of being unsafe, I can't say. I am unaware of any study or document from the FAA that identifies any direct relationship between the age of an individual aircraft and the likelihood of a particular aircraft model being in an accident. There are however many FAA, DOT, and NTSB resources that provide historical details on accidents, accident rates, and certain other safety related events associated with an airline or aircraft model.

Related Resources
Top Ten Airline Safety Questions
Top 10 Airline Safety Tips

Revised Bumping Compensation Shortchanges Passengers

by Dr. Todd Curtis

As of May 19, 2008, passengers will get additional protection from the Department of Transportation in the form of an increase in the maximum allowable compensation for passengers who are delayed due to being bumped, or involuntarily removed from a flight due to overbooking. This is the first increase in the maximum compensation in 30 years. Unfortunately for passengers, this increase in benefits does not keep up with inflation. What may upset passengers even more is that the DOT was well aware of what it would have taken to keep up with inflation, but chose not to do so.

Currently in the U.S., most passengers who are involuntarily bumped are eligible for denied boarding compensation. If the airline can arrange alternate transportation that is scheduled to arrive at the passenger’s destination within one hour of the original planned arrival time of the overbooked flight, no compensation is required. If the airline can’t do that, there are specific kinds of compensation that airlines are required to provide to passengers, including cash compensation.

If the alternate transportation is scheduled to arrive between one and two hours after the original planned arrival (between one and four hours on international flights), the compensation equals 100% of the passenger’s one way fare to his or her next stopover or final destination, with a $200 maximum additional cash compensation . If the airline cannot get a passenger to the destination airport within two hours (four hours on international flights), the compensation rate doubles to 200% of the passenger’s one-way fare, with a $400 maximum additional cash benefit. This compensation is in addition to the value of the passenger’s ticket, which he or she can use for alternate transportation or have refunded if not used.

The last time the rule was substantially changed was in 1982, and the last time the maximum additional cash benefit was raised was in 1978. For 2008, the DOT made several changes, the most important was a doubling of the maximum cash compensation to $400 for domestic flights and $800 for international flights. While at first this appears to be a win for consumers, in economic terms it is in fact a step backwards from when the compensation was last changed in 1978. In addition, the policymakers who approved the change were well aware that a doubling of the compensation would not have kept up with inflation.

When the DOT proposed these rule changes in 2007, it applied the government’s consumer price index (CPI) data to the 1978 compensation and concluded that to keep up with inflation, the dollar amount would have to go from $400 to $1,248 for the maximum benefit. That value has increased since 2007. According to the Department of Labor online inflation calculator, on May 12, 2008 it showed that $200 in 1978 had the same buying power as $654.99 in 2008, and $400 had $1,309.99 of buying power. The bottom line is that when the new compensation limits take effect, they would have to be about 60% higher to have actually kept up with inflation.

Air travelers, especially those who may get bumped in the near future, should keep in mind that the airlines did not directly decide on the new maximum compensation limits (though the Air Transport Association, an association of the larger U.S. airlines, did not object to the larger compensation limits). The DOT issued this rule change to double the compensation, even after reviewing options that included one that would have allowed the compensation to keep pace with inflation, and another option that would have done away with a maximum limit altogether.

In the end, the DOT approved a change in maximum compensation for bumped passengers that increases passenger compensation but does not keep up with inflation. In comments posted by the DOT on April 16, 2008, DOT Secretary Mary Peters stated that the rule will ensure flyers are more fairly reimbursed for their inconvenience. The airline industry apparently found this result to be fair as well, even though the rule change leaves a bumped airline passenger holding the (somewhat smaller) bag.

AirSafe.com welcomes your feedback on this article. Please feel free to send your comments to http://feedback.airsafe.org.


Resources

Rights of Passengers on Overbooked Flights
http://www.airsafe.com/complain/bumping.htm

April 16, 2008 DOT Announcement of New Bumping Rule
http://www.dot.gov/affairs/dot5308.htm

July 9, 2007 DOT Proposal for Compensation
http://www.dot.gov/affairs/dot6707.htm

Historical Consumer Price Index Values
ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt

Department of Labor Online Inflation Calculator
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

DOT Regulation 14 CFR 250 on Oversales (Bumping)
http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/rules/part%20250.pdf

Federal Register from April 18, 2008 Announcing Rule Changes
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/08-1145.pdf

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