Airlines fined US$175,000 for stranding passengers of tarmac

Three airlines have landed $175,000 in federal fines for abandoning 47 passengers on a Minnesota tarmac overnight.

Continental Express Flight 2816 was en route from Houston to Minneapolis, when it was forced to divert to Rochester because of thunderstorms at about 12:30 a.m.

The airport was closed and Mesaba Airlines employees — the only airline employees at the airport at the time — refused to open the terminal for the stranded passengers.

The passengers were stuck on a Continental Airlines plane—without a working toilet—after crewmembers told the passengers they were not allowed to disembark.

The fine is the Department of Transportation's (DOT) first-ever punishment against airlines for leaving passengers stranded on a plane.

"This fine is not only a first but $175,000 is dissuasive enough that US domestic airlines will think about their behavior before putting passengers in harm's way," the spokesman of group backing a passengers' bill of rights told the Los Angeles Times.

Continental Airlines, Inc., and its regional airline partner ExpressJet Airlines, Inc., which operated the flight for Continental, were each fined $50,000.
ExpressJet spokeswoman Kristy Nicholas said the airline wouldn't have to pay for half the fines it promises to spend the same amount of money to train staff on how to handle extended tarmac delays.

DOT imposed the largest penalty — $75,000 — on Mesaba Airlines, a subsidiary of Northwest Airlines, which was acquired by Delta Air Lines in 2008.
"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," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement.