Major
domestic airlines in June reported only three tarmac delays that exceeded three
hours, compared with the 268 flights that experienced such delays in the same
period last year, the U.S. Department of Transportation reported on Tuesday.
This is the second month of data collected in the wake of a new a federally
mandated time limit on such delays.
DOT
reported that the three flights experiencing long tarmac delays in June
"involved three United Airlines flights departing Chicago’s O’Hare airport
on June 18, a day in which the Chicago area experienced a severe
thunderstorm," DOT said. "None of the tarmac delays exceeded the
three-hour limit by more than five minutes."
The
number of incidents in June was slightly lower than the five three-hour-plus
tarmac delays reported in May.
Despite
claims that the new tarmac delay rules would spur a greater rate of
cancellations when airlines near the three-hour mark and face heavy fines for
exceeding it, DOT reported that carriers canceled 1.5 percent of flights in
June—"equal to the 1.5 percent cancellation rate of June 2009."