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By Leslie Miller
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Air trav-
lers now can find out which air-
ines have the most delayed
lights due to issues they can
ontrol, such as maintenance or
rew problems.
The Transportation
Department has since 1987
issued monthly reports ranking
major airlines according to their
on-time records but didn’t say
why flights were late.
The agency started collecting
xpanded data five months ago
ind released its first report
Thursday. The latest month sur
veyed was October, when 3.49
jercent, or about 19,000 flights,
were delayed by airline problems.
Roughly the same number of
lights were delayed by weather.
Security — including airport
wacuations or delays caused by
ines of more than 29 minutes —
iccounted for less than 1 percent
at includesli uf late flights.
Overall, 86.4 percent of all
lights were on schedule in
October, the third-best month
since the government began
stofNBCiiii ceeping records 16 years ago.
“We like what the report
ays,” said Doug Wills,
pokesman for the Air Transport
Association, which represents
airlines. “We think this is a good
analytical tool to measure on
line performance.”
The report also showed that
in October:
— JetBlue had the best on-
time performance, with 90.4
percent of its flights arriving
on schedule.
— Continental Airlines had
the lowest rate of delays, 1.8 per
cent, caused by circumstances
within its control. Atlantic Coast
Airlines had the highest percent
age — 8.4 percent.
After the summer of 2000,
when bad weather and congest
ed skies caused record delays
and cancellations, the
Transportation Department
decided to add a requirement
that airlines add more informa
tion for consumers about the
reason for late flights — includ
ing circumstances under the air
line’s control.
Those include cleaning the
airplane, overbooking, mainte
nance or a medical emergency.
Sam Podberesky, assistant
general counsel for the
Transportation Department, said
40 percent of consumer com
plaints are directly related to
flight delays.
“Most blame the airlines,” he
said. “The major complaint wasn’t
that people were lied to — it was
that they weren’t informed.”
The report, which covered
June through October, showed
that weather is a major cause of
delays, either because aircraft
can’t fly through bad weather or
because weather causes problems
Tardy flights
Information on the causes of flight
delays has been released by the
government for the first time.
Operational delays held up the
most flights in October.
Reasons for delayed flights,
by percentage
1 Airline g Weather □ Other
20 percent
15
NOTE: Other includes late arrivals, National
Aviation System non-weather delays, and
security. The percentage unaccounted for
are flights not delayed.
SOURCE: Bureau of AP
Transportation Statistics
in the national aviation system,
which includes airport runways
and air traffic control facilities.
Aviation experts disagreed
on the usefulness of the new
method of reporting.
Kevin Mitchell, chairman of
the Business Travel Coalition,
said consumers are unlikely to
find the report useful because it
contains so much data, but trav
el writers and industry analysts
will be able to interpret the
information for them.
NEWS IN BRIEF
Woman gets 10
years for running
over woman in
mayo dispute
HOUSTON (AP) — A woman
who ran down a McDonald’s
restaurant manager when she
didn’t get mayonnaise on her
cheeseburger was sentenced to
10 years in prison on Thursday
for aggravated assault.
Waynetta Nolan, 37, had said
she didn’t mean to run over
Sherry Allen Jenkins, drag her
across the parking lot of a south
west Houston McDonald’s and
break her pelvis.
A jury took less than an hour
on Wednesday to convict her
and then took four hours
Thursday to sentence her.
State Bar of Texas
eliminating jobs
AUSTIN (AP) — The State
Bar of Texas is cutting 29 jobs
and closing six field offices
connected to the chief discipli
nary counsel’s office, which
administers lawyer discipline.
The changes, made public
Thursday, are effective March
31, 2004.
The move is intended to save
money and is part of an overall
review begun during the Texas
Legislature’s sunset review of
the State Bar. The new State
Bar Act eliminates one level of
hearings in the attorney disci
pline process and adds alter
native methods for resolving
attorney-client conflicts that
might not rise to the level of
professional misconduct.
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By Barry Schweid
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
m
WASHINGTON — President Bush
howed guarded interest Thursday in an
inofficial peace plan for the Middle East but
ield firm to his own approach that calls for
idemocratic Palestinian state and the end of
error attacks against Israel.
“We appreciate people discussing peace,”
Bush said. “We just want to make sure peo-
)le understand that the principles of peace
are clear.”
The president’s remarks were directed
at the unofficial plan produced by a
Palestinian official and an ex-Israeli jus
tice minister that has drawn support from
fit former President Carter and a number of
other international figures.
The architects, Yasser Abed Rabbo, a vet
eran Palestinian negotiator who is on the
Palestine Liberation Organization’s execu
tive committee, and former Israeli Justice
Minister Yossi Beilin are in the capital lob
bying for support.
They are due to meet on Friday with
Secretary of State Colin Powell, who
endorsed their effort publicly last month.
Elliott Abrams, who deals with Middle East
issues at the National Security Council, is
expected to participate.
On the eve of the session, which would
lend at least a measure of credibility to the
plan, the House majority leader, Rep. Tom
DeLay, R-Texas, called for its rejection.
“Entertaining freelance peace plans —
like the Geneva plan — that morally equate
terrorism and self-defense is not only coun
terproductive to the peace process but dan
gerous in its validation of terrorists and ter
rorism,” DeLay said.
Bush, responding to reporters’ questions
in the Oval Office, dealt carefully with the
plan that has been condemned by Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Rabbo said
Wednesday it has the support of Palestinian
leader Yasser Arafat.
“Everyone knows where I stand,” Bush
began. He said peace begins with having a
Palestinian state based upon democratic princi
ples and with leaders “committed to defeating
and dismantling the terrorist organizations.”
As for Israel, the president said, it must
help the Palestinian state emerge. “And
that’s why we are continuing to talk to them
about the illegal settlements and outposts”
that Israel has built in the West Bank, and
about a security hairier being constructed
partially within the West Bank in an effort to
keep out attackers, the president said.
Powell, at a news conference with NATO
foreign ministers in Brussels, Belgium, said
the administration was strongly committed
to the U.S.-backed road map produced joint
ly by the United States, Russia, the
European Union and the United Nations.
“The road map captures the vision that
President Bush laid out” in a speech in June
2002, Powell said.
“But that is not to say there are not other
ideas out there that people have,” Powell said.
Like Bush, the secretary of state said the
Palestinians must bring attacks against
Israel to an end.
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