« Flights ramp up as Thai airports reopen | Home | Best low-fare days and other tips for holiday flight-planning »

Just chute me? TACA flight delay raises questions about stranded passengers

L.A. Times Staff Writer James Wagner gives a picture of what happened Monday with the TACA airlines flight from El Salvador that was stranded on the tarmac at Ontario International Airport for almost nine hours. The plane, carrying 132 passengers, had been diverted due to fog at LAX.

Why can’t stranded folks just get out of the plane via those emergency chutes? We knew you’d ask that (or maybe you wouldn’t have).

Travel editor Catharine Hamm explained it in “Why Passengers Get Stuck on the Tarmac”:

“The mental picture of newly freed hostages, uh, I mean passengers, zipping down an emergency slide may bring a smile to your face, but such an exit is no laughing matter,” she writes in response to that question.

This tarmac nightmare is just the latest in what fliers experience on a regular basis: delayed or canceled flights.

The U.S. Airline Passenger Trip Delay Report (2007) put out by the Center for Air Transportation Systems Research last April found that total passenger trip delays in 2007 added up to 281.4 million hours, or 32,477 years. The report estimated delayed or canceled flights cost the economy $8.5 billion per year.

The report goes on to say that the 29% increase in delays betwen 2006 and 2007 was “the result of the combination of fewer empty seats on flights and an increase in the number of canceled flights. The passengers on canceled flights were forced to wait significantly longer times for their rebooked flights. Many passengers were forced to spend the night before resuming their trip the next day.”

— Mary Forgione, L.A. Times staff writer

[Photo: Taca airlines passenger Mirna Lopez rests after arriving at Los Angeles International Airport on Monday. Credit: Nick Ut / Associated Press]

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 6:07 pm by Mary Forgione and is filed under Airline travel, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.