$900G tarmac-delay fine for American Eagle

The government Monday fined an American Airlines affiliate $900,000 for holding hundreds of passengers on board planes for hours on an airport tarmac in poor weather in Chicago last May.

The fine may deter similar future incidents. But industry analysts warned it may also trigger more canceled flights. Even before the fine against American Eagle Airlines, more flights were being canceled to avoid violating the new three-hour limit on tarmac delays the Department of Transportation imposed in 2010. Now cancellations will shoot up more, said airline analyst Michael Boyd. "If there's a 20 percent chance of this happening, an airline will cancel," he said, because of the potential for massive fines.

Airlines that violate the rule can be fined as much as $27,500 per passenger, but transportation officials had held off fining air carriers in any of the several dozen instances where the rule has been broken until this week. Industry officials are watching for any action from the department on a similar incident at the Hartford airport during a freak snowstorm in October.

The fine imposed on American Eagle was the largest penalty to be paid by an airline in a consumer protection case not involving civil rights violations, although airlines have paid much higher fines for violating federal safety regulations.

"We take our responsibility to comply with all of the department's requirements very seriously and have already put in place processes to avoid such an occurrence in the future," American Eagle president and chief executive Dan Garton said.

The DOT "understands that many of these instances are outside of an airline's control," said Steve Lott, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, which represents major carriers.

But officials apparently felt the American Eagle case -- 608 passengers on 15 planes for more than three hours -- was particularly egregious and wanted to send a warning to carriers before Thanksgiving travel.