Virgin America airlines, long the darling of airlines, seemed to have lost its innocence this past week-end when Flight 404 stranded passengers on board for an excruciatingly long 4.5 or 7 hours (depending on whether you are asking the company or the passengers) the tarmac.
A new law is coming into effect to prevent just this kind of passenger mistreatment by airlines with a maximum of 3 hours on the tarmac allowed before airlines must release passengers (with refunds or overnight hotel stay, etc.).
Read the article and watch the video at: abc News.
Personal anecdote: I’ve had a similar experience with a European airline [which shall remain nameless seeing that episode occurred many years ago and they may have changed] where we spent hours on the tarmac and then just before the maximum time ran out [I believe there was a 4 hour limit at that time], they got everyone off the plane and we spent a couple of hours literally shuffling from one hallway to another like rats in a maze, then we boarded a second plane that sat on the tarmac for more numbing hours.