I don't see how you infer that from the legislation. EVERY plane NEEDS to be somewhere else, to transport passengers from the original destination airport to another location. Airlines are NOT going to whimsically cancel many flights when there's a runway delay.
The implication by the previous poster was that the new regulation would force airlines to roll back to the terminal relatively often, and in doing so they would end up having to factor into their scheduled spending more time on the ground. (I believe the previous poster is incorrect about this legislation actually having the impact that many of its biggest boosters think it will have, as I mentioned earlier, and repeat below.)
But I don't get your objection anyway - do you think it makes more sense to trap passengers on a plane on the runway for four, eight, ten, or more hours? Or do you think it's more humane to allow them off the plane into the terminal, where there are plenty of facilities - not to mention options for alternative travel plans.
You present a false dichotomy. The words highlighted in bold belie the validity of your statement, since you've tainted your point with emotionally-laden language that obscures reality.
Regardless...
The problem is that
there is no good answer. None. Either passengers "cowboy up" and make the most of the ramifications of weather and air traffic delays, or we introduce a substantial amount of additional waste into the system. Now, in other threads (most recently, today, regarding cable television), you'll see me continually remind people that the object of business is to make money, and companies do that by pricing their services based on the value provided (instead of just covering their costs). However, the airline industry doesn't have that luxury, because the passengers place such low value on airline travel, despite how much benefit they actually derive from it, that they refuse to value it enough to cover much more than the costs to provide the service, if even that much. A faulty value perception scenario has essentially corrupted the market. As a result, unlike in those other scenarios (including cable television), there isn't the capacity, within the airline industry, to accommodate the cost of this newly added waste.
So one of three things will happen: (1) We'll go back to 2002 or 2004-5 or 2008 with a bunch of airlines driven into bankruptcy by these added costs unrelieved by sufficient increases in airfares paid by us passengers to cover those costs; (2) The airlines will essentially collude together to assert that passengers must necessarily pay more, to cover these costs (either figuring out a way to do so that is legal, or the regulators essentially allowing them to do so, for the good of the system); or my best guess: (3) The FAA will essentially mitigate the majority of the costs associated with this new regulation but enforcing it in a manner such that
it has practically no real impact.
) new federal legislation requires airlines to allow passengers off the plane after three hours of being stuck on the ground.
