HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – Passengers aboard an already-delayed American Airlines flight were stuck for nearly three hours at a Pennsylvania airport, until after 3 a.m., because of an equipment malfunction and an apparent lack of airline staff to help the passengers off the flight another way.
“The jetway is not working, and they said there are no stairs and there is no one here to bring us to another gate,” Ellen Tillemans, a passenger aboard American Airlines flight 1549 from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport to Harrisburg International Airport, emailed Nexstar’s WHTM at 3:03 a.m., which turned out to be moments before she and other passengers finally got off the plane through a rear stairway and walked to the terminal.
But according to a WHTM analysis of FlightAware data, the flight had landed hours earlier, at 12:37 a.m. That, in turn, was nearly two hours after the flight’s original scheduled arrival time of 10:52 p.m.
Passengers said – and the airline confirmed – they finally began leaving through a stairwell at the rear of the plane at 3:05 a.m.
Photo provided by a passenger aboard American Airlines flight 1571 from Dallas-Fort Worth to Harrisburg shows a worker trying to operate a malfunctioning jetbridge. (Shared with WHTM)
An airline spokesperson couldn’t confirm the reason for the initial departure delay from Dallas-Fort Worth, although bad weather impacted the region Friday night.
That two-and-a-half-hour wait between landing and deplaning would enable the airline to narrowly avoid potentially millions of dollars in fines under what is sometimes known as the “tarmac delay rule.” Under the rule, airlines face fines of up to $27,500 per passenger for a wait on the ground, aboard an aircraft, of more than three hours.
A WHTM analysis of Cirium/Diio Mi airline schedule data shows the airplane would have been an Airbus A319, with 128 seats. An American Airlines spokesperson said the flight carried 107 passengers, which, had the wait lasted another half hour, means the airline could have faced a fine by the U.S. Department of Transportation of up to $2.9 million, although airlines have sometimes negotiated lower fines or avoided them, depending on specific circumstances.
Reported three-hour delays on the ground have become rare since the rule and fines started in 2010, although they still happen periodically.
Tillemans and two other passengers who contacted WHTM questioned what they believed was a lack of airport staffing. In fact, a combination of airport and airline issues seems to have caused the lengthy wait.
A sensor on the jetbridge through which passengers typically would have walked into the terminal at gate C3 malfunctioned, confirmed Scott Miller, the airport’s spokesman.
“Bridge repairs have been completed, and it will be back in service soon,” said Miller, who apologized for the airport’s role in the incident.
Still, redundant measures, such as the stairs the airline ultimately used, are typically available.
Airlines at Harrisburg, except American, use contracted “ground handlers,” as the companies are known, to perform tasks such as operating the jetbridges and, in a case like this, bringing stairs and managing the unusual arrival. But American – with more flights than any other airline at the airport plus its own subsidiary, Piedmont Airlines, with a maintenance and crew base at the airport – uses its own Piedmont workers to perform those jobs.
Based on several accounts, no such worker was at the airport when the flight initially landed, with the specific knowledge and training to operate the stairs.
“After arriving at Harrisburg International Airport (MDT), customers aboard American Airlines flight 1571 from Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) experienced a delayed deplaning due to a mechanical issue with a jetbridge that is maintained by the airport authority,” an airline spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Customers deplaned via stairs after no airport personnel were available to address the mechanical issue. We apologize for the inconvenience these customers experienced.”
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