United Airlines fined record US$1.9 million over unacceptable tarmac delays

United Airlines has been fined a total of US$1.9 million by the U.S. Department of Transport (DOT) for a total of 25 specific incidents where federal rules were violated as its aircraft were left on the tarmac, with passenger on board, for longer than three hours for domestic flights and four hours for international flights before allowing them to disembark. The occurrences happened between 2016 and February of this year and involved a total of 3,218 passengers.

According to United Airlines, the majority of incidences occurred as a result of bad weather and involved flights which had been diverted from their original destination. United was keen to point out that the 25 flights in question were out of a total of eight million in the six-year period. As United Airlines had already compensated passengers to the tune of US$750,000 this was credited against the fine, while a further US$200,000 was to be credited to the carrier to help it develop “a diversion management tool which improves United’s Network Operations Center overall situational awareness of system-wide diversions and better allows United to avoid the oversaturation of airports with diversion flights.”

Consequently, the level of fine that United will have to pay is US$950,000. United said Friday it remains “committed to fully meeting all DOT rules and will continue identifying and implementing improvements in how we manage difficult operating conditions,” adding that it “believes there is also a tension between the rules and operational decisions to position flights to take advantage of windows of opportunity to get the passengers to their ultimate destination.” The carrier also let it be known that it had made considerable improvements to and investment in its management of diversions.