{"id":1084,"date":"2026-07-05T12:11:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T12:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1084"},"modified":"2026-07-05T12:11:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T12:11:49","slug":"prepare-for-airplane-purgatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1084","title":{"rendered":"Prepare for Airplane Purgatory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

One evening in May, passengers boarded United Flight 661 from Newark, New Jersey, to Chicago. As the plane readied for takeoff, a thunderstorm swept in, grounding the plane. The storm, which produced winds upwards of 50 miles an hour, was fast moving and cleared a few hours later. And yet, seven hours after Flight 661 first left the gate, it was still on the tarmac, passengers crammed inside. Around midnight, the flight was canceled.<\/p>\n

Read more A President With More Control, but Less Power<\/a><\/p>\n

More and more travelers across the United States are coming home from trips with similar stories. That same night in May, passengers flying to Denver, Rochester, and Milwaukee were also stranded on planes in Newark for roughly as long as Flight 661. In the first five months of this year, 342 domestic flights were held on the tarmac for more than three hours, according to federal data. (International tarmac delays are far less common.) At that rate, 2026 could become the year with the highest number of extended tarmac delays since the Department of Transportation began policing them in 2010. Currently, that dubious honor lies with 2025, which saw more than 700 three-hour-plus domestic delays. The most torturous category of flight delay is getting more common.<\/p>\n

Tarmac delays happen in part because modern airlines depend on keeping planes moving. Although air-traffic control decides each plane\u2019s ultimate time of departure, airlines decide when a given flight boards, and holding passengers on the tarmac, rather than at a gate, frees up valuable real estate for the next arriving flight. It also ensures that a plane is ready to depart the moment a weather window opens. But some tarmac delays seem to be a matter of happenstance. I was recently on a flight that sat on the tarmac at LaGuardia for more than two hours after the airport closed a runway because of what the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey called a \u201ctwo-inch depression\u201d next to it. Plus, so many flights need to depart and land each day that a small stop in operations\u2014because of, say, a passing storm\u2014can create a pileup on the runway that takes hours to rectify. Even before Flight 661 was due to take off, air-traffic control had announced plans to delay flights out of Newark in anticipation of weather problems, then temporarily halted flights that evening because of thunderstorms in the vicinity. A spokesperson for United told me that Flight 661 requested to return to the gate as soon as crews figured out it wouldn\u2019t take off in the foreseeable future, but the process \u201ctook longer than expected because of ongoing ground congestion.\u201d Certain airports are also being forced to increase the time between takeoffs\u2014and sometimes stop them altogether\u2014owing to shortages of air-traffic controllers.<\/p>\n

None of this, though, explains why tarmac delays seem to have gotten so bad, so fast. When asked to comment on the recent delay statistics, Airlines for America, which lobbies for the largest airlines in the U.S., blamed \u201cmore frequent and unpredictable severe weather patterns across the country, which can significantly affect airport and air traffic operations.\u201d And climate change really has made weather more volatile. But 2025 had nearly three times the average number of tarmac delays as the decade prior, and the weather is not three times worse.<\/p>\n

The aughts, too, were a grim time for air travelers. Extended tarmac delays were through the roof\u2014nearly 900 in 2009 alone\u2014and a number of high-profile incidents made the news, including a JetBlue flight on Valentine\u2019s Day 2007 that stayed on the tarmac for 10 hours. Lawmakers took note, and in April 2010, the Department of Transportation implemented a rule allowing airlines to be fined $27,500 for each passenger who was left sitting on a grounded domestic flight for more than three hours.<\/p>\n

That rule isn\u2019t perfect. It does little for passengers who are stuck for less than three hours, beyond guaranteeing them water and a working bathroom. Those shorter tarmac delays can still be miserable (so miserable that a minor tarmac delay recently inspired one passenger to attempt to escape a Delta plane out of the front cabin door). Plus, the fines levied by the DOT have rarely lived up to the government\u2019s early threats. Since 2010, most extended tarmac delays that have occurred resulted in no fines. \u201cEven in the cases where there have been enforcement actions in years past, the flight crew could probably pick up the change that was left behind in the plane to pay the fine,\u201d Teresa Murray, a consumer-protection advocate at the advocacy group PIRG, told me. In 2018, the DOT fined Allegiant Air just $225,000 for keeping passengers stranded on 10 different planes at some of the nation\u2019s hottest airports in the middle of summer, without adequate climate control, and in one case without food or water. (Allegiant said in its official response to the fines that triple-digit temperatures made cooling the cabin difficult and that it was considering \u201cpassengers\u2019 consistently strong desire to get to their destination as quickly as possible\u201d when deciding whether to keep people on planes.)<\/p>\n

Read more Pope Leo\u2019s July 4 Message to America Was Unmistakable<\/a><\/p>\n

But the possibility of enforcement nonetheless seemed to improve airlines\u2019 behavior. The number of extended tarmac delays dropped from 868 in 2009 to just 14 in 2011. Even when Hurricane Irene battered the East Coast in 2011, forcing nearly 12,000 cancellations, not a single plane was stranded on the tarmac for more than three hours.<\/p>\n

One possible explanation for why tarmac delays are now racking up is that airlines are no longer even a little afraid of running afoul of the law, Bill McGee, a senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Liberties Project, told me. Since Donald Trump\u2019s second presidential term began, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy so far has issued zero fines for extended tarmac delays. That\u2019s not entirely out of step with past administrations; the Biden administration, for example, issued fewer than a dozen fines for the more than 1,200 domestic extended delays that happened on their watch. But one of those was the largest fine of its kind in history: $4.1 million for American Airlines for 43 delays. (\u201cWhile these events are relatively rare\u2014we had just seven domestic events per 100,000 flights in 2025\u2014we continue to review our operation and invest in tools, coordination and operations planning aimed at reducing their occurrence and minimizing the impact on our customers,\u201d an American Airlines spokesperson told me in an email.)<\/p>\n

The larger issue is that Duffy, a former lobbyist who has worked on behalf of airlines, has walked back other Biden-era efforts to punish airlines for inconveniencing consumers. In November, Duffy scrapped a plan to reimburse consumers for flight delays. In December, the DOT did not collect the final installment of a $140 million fine that the Biden administration had levied against Southwest Airlines for a systems meltdown that caused mass cancellations during the 2022 holiday season. A spokesperson for the DOT told me that Duffy has taken action to limit flight delays, including mandating fewer departures from major airports and pushing for air-traffic-control software upgrades, and that the decision to cancel the last Southwest payment was made on the condition that the airline \u201cinvest the remaining amount due under the fine towards system improvements that directly benefit passengers.\u201d On tarmac delays, the spokesperson told me the department is \u201ccurrently tracking 84 incidents for potential violations\u201d and that \u201cthey\u2019re undergoing exhaustive, objective legal review right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stricter enforcement of tarmac-delay rules could come with trade-offs. Airlines might decide to cancel more flights preemptively rather than waiting out storms. In fact, several reports found that flight cancellations increased in the years immediately following the 2010 rule. A more cancellation-minded business model for the airlines could mean headaches for consumers too. DOT data show that flights are, on average, about 83 percent full. On certain routes, one cancellation could mean that passengers are forced to wait days to get rebooked on an open flight. That\u2019s not to mention the holidays, when flights regularly sell out.<\/p>\n

The question then becomes: Are passengers better served by trying to get flights out at all costs, or by a system that is more willing to throw in the towel early? When I was sitting on the tarmac at LaGuardia, I was desperate to get home to Chicago. My flight had already been delayed for nearly three hours before I even boarded. My fellow passengers and I had waited this long, so turning the plane around would have seemed like a defeat. But as I reached hour two of being planted in my middle seat and the two children in front of me wailed, trying again tomorrow didn\u2019t sound so bad.<\/p>\n

Read more How to Find Joy on a Quiet Day In<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The chances of getting stuck for hours in a grounded plane are soaring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"yoast_head":"\nPrepare for Airplane Purgatory - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1084\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Prepare for Airplane Purgatory - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The chances of getting stuck for hours in a grounded plane are soaring.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=1084\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-05T12:11:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1084#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1084\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"Prepare for Airplane Purgatory\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-05T12:11:49+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1084\"},\"wordCount\":1457,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1084#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/923c9785e65a35f91866bc92f446b064.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Science\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1084#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1084\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=1084\",\"name\":\"Prepare for Airplane Purgatory - 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