The U.S. Dept. of Transportation set a couple of precedents today as it fined Continental Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines $100,000 for their parts in causing passengers on Continental Express flight 2816 to be marooned on board the aircraft at Rochester International Airport in Minnesota for almost six hours in the early morning of Aug. 8, 2009.
Mesaba Airlines, which didn’t operate the flight but was responsible for its ground handling at the airport, also got whacked with a civil penalty of $75,000.
Continental joined Twitter Aug. 2 and has had little to tell its customers and Twitter followers about the incident other than to post a press release Aug. 21, expressing gratitude at the time that the DOT recognized that the ExpressJet crew tried to get the passengers off the plane.
