New federal data released Thursday affirmed the chaotic flying conditions at major airports in late December, when heavy snowstorms swept through the East Coast and grounded thousands of flights.

The 18 largest U.S. airlines canceled nearly 19,700 flights — 3.7% of 539,340 domestic departures — for the month, according to the Transportation Department’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

When measured by rate of cancellation, the month was the second-worst December and the 15th worst month for scratching flights since the department began keeping data in 1995. In December 2009, 2.8% of flights were canceled.
JetBlue, whose hub is based at New York’s JFK, one of the hardest hit airports, posted the highest cancellation rate, with 8.5% grounded in December.

The bad weather had little effect on tarmac delays, however, as airlines sought to avoid federal fines that can be imposed when flights are left on the runway for more than three hours. Only three domestic flights were held for more than three hours, down from 34 in December 2009.

In April, federal regulators imposed a new rule that carries fines of up to $27,500 per passenger if flights sit on the tarmac for more than three hours without giving passengers a chance to get off the plane. Lengthy tarmac delays have been cut dramatically since the rule went into effect. Only 15 total delays of more than three hours were reported from May through December 2010 compared to 584 during the same period a year earlier.

While delays of more than three hours have mostly disappeared, airlines reported 317 delays in December that lasted at least two hours.

Before the new rule, the airline industry had argued that it would lead to more cancellations — especially when bad weather hits in winter months. But the industry Thursday played down the rule’s effect on the high cancellation rate.

“While the tarmac delay rule may be a consideration, December had an extraordinary number of snowstorms, impacting multiple hubs,” said Jean Medina, a spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association, an airline trade group. “Airlines were able to proactively cancel flights to minimize inconvenience to customers.”

Foreign carriers aren’t yet subject to the fines. But the Transportation Department said Thursday that their operational performance at New York JFK during and after the Dec. 26 blizzard will be considered as it gets ready to issue a final ruling later this year on whether to impose a similar rule on foreign carriers.

The bad weather showed up in other ways, too. Carriers’ on-time performance also fell in December, as more than a quarter of all arrivals were delayed more than 15 minutes. In December, 72% of flights arrived on time, down from November’s 83.2% and unchanged from a year earlier. About 37% of late flights were delayed by weather. A flight is considered on time if it arrives within 15 minutes of schedule.

For all of 2010, U.S. carriers’ on-time arrival rate rose to 79.8%, a slight improvement on 2009’s 79.5%.

Other year-end findings:

•Better baggage handling. The carriers posted a mishandled baggage rate of 3.57 reports per 1,000 passengers in 2010, better than 3.99 in 2009. But for December, they posted 4.8, up from November’s 2.93.

•More complaints. The department received 10,985 complaints about airline service from consumers in 2010, 24.5% higher than 2009. Delta Air Lines received the highest rate of complaints during the year — two per every 100,000 passengers. Southwest had the lowest. In December, the carriers received 753 complaints, up from 667 in November.

•Fewer bumped passengers. In 2010, 65,000 passengers were bumped — called “involuntary denied boarding” by airlines — for a rate of 1.09 for every 10,000 passengers vs. 1.23 in 2009. Nearly 11,800 were bumped between October and December. The 0.79 rate during the 3-months period is an improvement from 1.13 a year earlier.

Have you checked out YWN Radio yet? Click HERE to listen!

(Source: USA Today)