Dept of Transport Accused of Compiling Misleading Airline Delay Statistics

Media reports and verified eye-witness accounts give the lie to airline self-reporting of airliner strandings at terminals, according to consumer advocacy groups. As a result of their voluble complaints, there was a public meeting on June 20th called by the DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS). It was attended by over 150 airline representatives and concentrated on how to fix inaccurate and incomplete data reporting of flight delays and strandings. The Coalition for an Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights (CAPBOR) issued and presented a study that detailed the inaccurate statistics. Paul Hudson, executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project (ACAP), also pointed out that “DOT delay statistics are inaccurate to the point of being deceptive. For example, the agency now admits that there were over 16,000 flight diversions last year but it collected no data on the delays that this caused passengers. The DOT also admitted that it does not count cancellations, which are now one in 20 flights, as causing any delay." CAPBOR sees addressing of the deceitful statistics as being fundamental to instituting reform and achieving acceptable passenger health and safety outcomes. Compensation will be addressed separately.