The United States Department of Transportation (DoT) says it is investigating the Trinidad-based Caribbean Airlines (CAL) for keeping passengers on an international flight for more than four hours.

The DoT said the near four and a half hour delay occurred on an August 15 CAL flight from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Piarco International in Port of Spain.

The DOT's Air Travel Consumer Report states that the only delay on a runway that violated rules implemented in 2010 by the Obama administration as part of a “Passenger’s Bill of Rights” in August, was the Caribbean Airlines flight.

The report states the rules against runway delays prohibit delays longer than four hours on international flights, compared to the three-hour rule for domestic routes.

The DoT said that since the new rules took effect, airlines can be fined US$27,500 for each passenger who is stranded on a plane.

The report says US airlines did not have any delays longer than three hours on domestic flights for the month of August and that good weather helped US airlines get passengers and their bags to their destinations at a “better clip in August than July”.

Unlike in July, when passengers on 18 flights were stuck on airport tarmacs for hours, no airline held passengers on the tarmac longer than three hours on flights inside the US in August, the report stated.

CMC