2. Why not airports and the DOT? Airports have slots, but airlines overschedule the slots. Current slot controls don’t have enough teeth. On a perfect day, at a slot-controlled airport, it is known and guaranteed that some flights will be late due to overscheduling. Let us enforce them, *with fines*, and hopefully all the airlines, airports and apologists will not construct new excuses.
That is absolutely not true. Where airports have slot controls, there is no overscheduling of slots. The airlines only schedule the number of flights they are allowed to schedule. If that number is above the true airport capacity, then slots should be adjusted to the right number.

4. Too many 2+ hour delayed flights will get canceled also. Personally I think 2 hours is too much also. Yes I want to get to my destination. But I don’t want to have to spend 6 hours on a plane to go LGA-ORD. [Which is legal today, between a 3 hour delay, 2.5 hour actual flying time, and possible circling and gate delays on arrival]. 10 years ago, it used to take 1:45 of flying time. Now airlines have overloaded the ATC system, and they bitch about it.
You may think a 2+ hour delay is bad, but there are plenty of people who would rather get to their destination even if it involves a 2 hour delay. It’s better than not getting there at all. Here’s the thing. When the weather gets really bad at congested airports (and that’s when these incidents are more likely to happen), then airlines nearly always allow customers to change their plans without a fee. I would love to see an airline announce at the gate that long delays are likely so then you can simply walk away because you don’t want to sit on the ground for 2 hours while everyone else can still get to their destination.

5. People want frequency. Yes but within reason. Airlines have made it absurd. We don’t need so many flights DFW-LGA for ‘travelers’ convenience’. No traveler would object if the 3:10, 3:40 and 4:35 were consolidated into 2 flights. Airlines will very likely save money on operating 2 bigger flights instead of 3 smaller ones. I will have to make my ‘business travel’ schedule fit the airlines schedules (and whims) today. I will adjust, especially if my arrival time is more predictable. My employer will be happy to adjust if fares are cheaper. The issue is, airlines have chosen smaller planes to have more flexibility, and many don’t have bigger planes to fly. They can’t fix this overnight, but there are plenty of aircraft of all shapes and sizes parked in the desert.
Let’s look further at your example. Two of those flights are operated by 140 seat MD-80s and the other is operated by a 160 seat 737-800. So that’s 440 seats total. Though a 767 technically can land at LaGuardia, I think it’s highly unlikely that they would use that plane since it focuses more on international. That leaves the 188 seat 757, so with two flights, that’s 376 seats, or a 15% cut. It’s not an easy thing to fix, though this might be an ideal place to actually cut one flight. Where else could you do it, however?

I also found that Cranky left hanging points of Kate’s unanswered. For example:
- Spirit Air doesn’t report because they are below the threshold, and have had a lot of problems lately.
I said in a previous comment that I definitely think the threshold for reporting airlines should be lowered to include all regionals and airlines like Spirit. I’m not sure what you want me to say about Spirit. Maybe they had a couple of instances? It doesn’t dramatically change the number.

- Airlines voluntarily reduced capacity at O’Hare, and Newark has caps. But other airlines have added flights to offset, and we’re now worse than before the voluntarily reductions.
That happened at O’Hare, but it’s not really as much of an issue anymore with the new runway capacity. As for Newark, no other airline has added capacity. There are slots in place which, as I’ve already said, cannot be exceeded. If the issue is overscheduling, slots are the answer. I still maintain that the big issue is variability and not overscheduling.

PS. Personally, my pet peeve is not being stuck on the tarmac. I’ve been lucky enough that it’s only happened twice in about 10 years for me. It’s that while I am still in the terminal, airlines keep pushing flights out, and then cancelling them after stringing us along. In one of the February snowstorms, I watched LGA-ATL flights get delayed, changed, cancelled, all day. Eventually, only 2 of the flights scheduled from 3:00-9:00 actually operated but you only would have learned that as the evening wore on.
You act as if the airlines should know that the flights won’t operate, but weather is not the easiest thing to predict. The airlines want to operate as many flights as they can in order to get people, planes, and crews to where they need to be, but that’s not always possible. Snow may have been expected to let up but it didn’t. There are a million moving parts. The only alternative is just to cancel outright and that’s not ideal for most.

1. Why the airlines? You can argue many of the factors are out of their hands, but it has to be the airlines, they are the ones with who we exchange money for services. No-one else is a counterparty to individual travelers.

2. Why not airports and the DOT? Airports have slots, but airlines overschedule the slots. Current slot controls don’t have enough teeth. On a perfect day, at a slot-controlled airport, it is known and guaranteed that some flights will be late due to overscheduling. Let us enforce them, *with fines*, and hopefully all the airlines, airports and apologists will not construct new excuses.

3. It is such a rare occurrence anyway. If so, then why are you so violently against it. It will happen rarely and will protect those people wrong by that rare event. The rule forces the airlines to have a contingency plan. Which they didn’t in the past. Contingency plans are a good thing. Please don’t fight the airlines actually having a plan.

3b. 904 delays of over 3 hours. You can run the math. But if you believe the airlines voluntarily (cough, cough) policies, even 100 should be unacceptable. Even 10 should be unacceptable. It still happens…

4. Too many 2+ hour delayed flights will get canceled also. Personally I think 2 hours is too much also. Yes I want to get to my destination. But I don’t want to have to spend 6 hours on a plane to go LGA-ORD. [Which is legal today, between a 3 hour delay, 2.5 hour actual flying time, and possible circling and gate delays on arrival]. 10 years ago, it used to take 1:45 of flying time. Now airlines have overloaded the ATC system, and they bitch about it.

5. People want frequency. Yes but within reason. Airlines have made it absurd. We don’t need so many flights DFW-LGA for ‘travelers’ convenience’. No traveler would object if the 3:10, 3:40 and 4:35 were consolidated into 2 flights. Airlines will very likely save money on operating 2 bigger flights instead of 3 smaller ones. I will have to make my ‘business travel’ schedule fit the airlines schedules (and whims) today. I will adjust, especially if my arrival time is more predictable. My employer will be happy to adjust if fares are cheaper. The issue is, airlines have chosen smaller planes to have more flexibility, and many don’t have bigger planes to fly. They can’t fix this overnight, but there are plenty of aircraft of all shapes and sizes parked in the desert.

I also found that Cranky left hanging points of Kate’s unanswered. For example:
- Spirit Air doesn’t report because they are below the threshold, and have had a lot of problems lately.
- Airlines voluntarily reduced capacity at O’Hare, and Newark has caps. But other airlines have added flights to offset, and we’re now worse than before the voluntarily reductions.

Kate took this round.

PS. Personally, my pet peeve is not being stuck on the tarmac. I’ve been lucky enough that it’s only happened twice in about 10 years for me. It’s that while I am still in the terminal, airlines keep pushing flights out, and then cancelling them after stringing us along. In one of the February snowstorms, I watched LGA-ATL flights get delayed, changed, cancelled, all day. Eventually, only 2 of the flights scheduled from 3:00-9:00 actually operated but you only would have learned that as the evening wore on.

I would like to see a different, simpler rule. At some point after scheduled departure (2 hours, 3 hours, you choose), airlines either cancel, or guarantee the flight (or compensation even if it’s weather). The airline did no passengers any favors when they took the 3:00 flight to 5:00, then 5:15, 5:30, 6:15, 6:30, 6:45, called boarding, and then cancelled it 2 mins later. [They used that plane & crew to go to FLL instead]. Make an up-or-down call within 2 or 3 hours, but don’t string me along. I would bet people would have been much happier going home at 5:00 knowing they could not go, than being strung until 6:30, given false hope, and then being sent home. If I had someone dropping me off at the airport, I would not want them strung along for an undefined number of hours waiting to see if I could go, or if they needed to stay to drive me back home and try again in the next day or two.