So 47 passengers were stuck overnight in a small plane on the runway of a Minnesota airport leading to calls to regulate airline procedures is cases of long delay.

Well at least Joan Lowy of the Associated Press - as reported in today's SF Comical - has her head screwed on right. The real culprit here isn't the airline. It's the gummit by cracky:

But in its hunt for blame, the government isn't owning up to the fact that it had a hand in letting the mess happen.

Over recent years, nightmare strandings on the runway have prompted lots of posturing, but few results.

From January to June this year, 613 planes were delayed on tarmacs for more than three hours, their passengers kept on board, the government says.

. . .

Congress and the Clinton administration tried to do something after a January 1999 blizzard kept Northwest Airlines planes on the ground in Detroit, trapping passengers for seven hours. Some new regulations were put in place, but most proposals died, including one that airlines pay passengers who are kept waiting on a runway for more than two hours.

Later episodes left the status quo in place, despite attempts by some to find a remedy.

The airline industry, in opposing a limit on tarmac delays, argues that more flights will be canceled and passengers will spend more time in terminals than if they had continued to wait in the plane.

So the government was unable to push through regulations due to active industry opposition, aided by the massive bias against regulation the was held by the previous administration and Congress.

Which just goes to show that the government shouldn't be allowed to regulate airlines?