Okay, we were just about halfway serious the other day when we asked why the Tarmac Task Force hadn't been able to come up with any very strong recommendations other than urging the airlines to keep their stranded passengers updated about being stuck n the ground. Comes now The New York Times, easily the dominant voice in US newspapers. The Times, aka the Grey Lady, came out and opined that the Task Force panel was "stacked with airline and airport executives who treated the definition of lengthy delays as if it wrtee some conundrum of astrophysics." The editorial urged that the DOT take some action, unspecified, and added, "it certainly doesn't take an expert to realize that it is the passengers who pay to keep the airlines airborne." You can read their reasoning here.
The paper added, "As one industry member arrogantly maintained, 'One size doesn't fit all.' Enough already." Who's the arrogant one?
Anything would be better than the status quo, but the airlines continue to effectively stymie any real progress in favor of passengers.
It would be entirely too easy to just pick a number, set the rules and then reevaluate in a year to see how close they were. But if that happened the airlines would actually be forced to take care of their customers instead of the current situation.
This sucks for passengers, but it isn't really all that surprising that the government wouldn't figure out how to do something slightly useful.