WASHINGTON — The government is imposing fines for the first time against airlines for stranding passengers on an airport tarmac, the Transportation Department said Tuesday.
The department said it has levied $175,000 in fines against three airlines for their roles in the stranding of passengers overnight in a plane at Rochester, Minn., on Aug. 8.
Continental Express Flight 2816 was en route from Houston to Minneapolis carrying 47 passengers when thunderstorms forced it to divert to Rochester, where it landed about 12:30 a.m. The airport was closed, and Mesaba Airlines employees — the only airline employees at the airport at the time — refused to open the terminal for the stranded passengers.
Continental Airlines and its regional-airline partner ExpressJet, which operated the flight for Continental, were each fined $50,000. Mesaba, a subsidiary of Northwest Airlines, was fined $75,000.
