Airlines fined for stranding passengers on tarmac

MINNEAPOLIS — Federal fines totaling $175,000 were levied Tuesday against the three airlines involved in stranding of dozens of passengers overnight on a regional airliner on a tarmac in Rochester, Minn., this past summer. These fines are the first that airlines have received for lengthy tarmac delays.

Continental Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines were given a total civil penalty of $100,000 by the U.S. Department of Transportation for their roles in the passengers remaining on board Continental Express Flight 2816 for nearly six hours on Aug. 8.

Also, the department assessed a civil penalty of $75,000 against Mesaba Airlines, which provided ground handling for the flight.

Continental also provided a full refund to each passenger and also offered each passenger additional compensation for their time and discomfort.

A total of 47 passengers spent the night trapped inside the small airplane, parked at the Rochester airport, complete with crying babies and the aroma of overused toilets.

These "precedent-setting enforcement actions," as the department described them in a statement, follow a settlement by the carriers of violations alleged by federal authorities.

Along with these being the first time carriers have been punished for extended tarmac delays, the fine for Mesaba reflects the first time a carrier acting as a ground handler for another airline has been punished for failing to properly help passengers leave an aircraft during "an unreasonably long tarmac delay," the department statement said.

"I hope that this sends a signal to the rest of the airline industry that we expect airlines to respect the rights of air travelers," said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. "We will also use what we have learned from this investigation to strengthen protections for airline passengers subjected to long tarmac delays."

The federal investigation found that all three carriers violated the law that prohibits unfair and deceptive practices in air transportation for their respective roles in the incident, in which a Continental Express flight from Houston to Minneapolis/St. Paul operated by ExpressJet was diverted to Rochester due to bad weather in Minneapolis.

The aircraft reached Rochester about 12:30 a.m. and the passengers were stranded aboard the aircraft until about 6:15 a.m., when they were finally allowed into the terminal.

By about 9:30 a.m., the passengers were sent back on the same plane they had spent the night in — which by this time had no functioning restroom. They landed in the Twin Cities about 11 a.m.

Before diverting to Rochester, ExpressJet contacted Mesaba personnel at Rochester to request assistance at the airport. Mesaba, the only airline staffing the airport at the time, agreed.

Shortly after the flight arrived in Rochester, the ExpressJet captain asked the Mesaba employee handling the flight whether the passengers could enter the terminal. In response to this and subsequent inquiries, the captain was told that passengers could not enter the terminal because there were no Transportation Security Administration screeners on duty, even though TSA rules would have allowed the passengers to enter the airport as long as they remained in a secure area.

ExpressJet spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas said late Tuesday morning that her airline settled with federal officials "in order to avoid costly litigation." Nicholas added that ExpressJet's $50,000 fine can be cut in half if that amount is spent on extra training.

Nicholas emphasized that Tuesday's federal action "makes clear that ... ExpressJet consistently requested to deplane customers into the closed airport terminal building" and that it was the Mesaba ground handler who should be blamed for mistakenly keeping the passengers aboard.