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Airline passengers face longer delays under DOT rule, study finds

It takes most air passengers far more time to reach their destination despite a federal rule that penalizes airlines for stranding them onboard during lengthy tarmac delays, a Dartmouth College-Massachusetts Institute of Technology study finds.

"We concluded that a better balance between the conflicting objectives of reducing the frequency of long tarmac times and reducing total passenger delays can be achieved through a modified version of the existing rule," Vaze says. "This modified version involves increasing the tarmac time limit to 3.5 hours and only applying the rule to flights with planned departure times before 5 p.m. Finally, in order to implement the rule more effectively, we suggest the tarmac time limit be defined in terms of when the aircraft begin returning to the gate instead of when

Going forward, the researchers plan to examine the rule's impact on commercial airlines across different years, on commercial airline schedule decision-making and separately on international carriers, regional carriers, legacy carriers and low-cost carriers.