CBS 13 (Sacramento) news coverage of the California Passenger Bill of Rights. AP Story Below.

AP Report (March 23, 2008):

Kate Hanni's vacation was intended to be a relaxing trip that would give her family a chance to bond and help her recover from an assault she suffered while working as a real estate agent.

Instead, the plane ride turned into a nightmare when she was stranded on a tarmac for hours.

Now the Napa woman is helping push legislation to prevent the same thing from happening to other airline passengers.

Hanni, her husband and two sons were headed for Alabama in December 2006 when thunderstorms forced their flight to land in Austin, Texas. There they stayed for more than nine hours, sitting on the tarmac as the plane ran out of food, water and working toilets.

"No food or water, overflowing toilets, people going into diabetic shock. It was just horrifying...," she said. "Everything that you can imagine going wrong went wrong."

The incident led to the formation of the Coalition for

an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights. The consumer group is seeking legislation requiring airlines to provide passengers with basic necessities when they're stuck in grounded planes.

A California version of that bill is scheduled to be considered Monday by the Assembly Transportation Committee. Hanni, the coalition's founder and executive director, is planning to testify for it.

The measure, introduced by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, would require airlines to ensure that passengers have air, water, food, lights and working toilets if they are forced to wait on the tarmac for more than three hours at airports in California.

Airlines that fail to comply could find themselves facing lawsuits.

It's modeled after a New York law that was adopted last year after passengers were stranded on planes at Kennedy International Airport on Valentine's Day for more than 10 hours with no food and overflowing toilets.

Leno said he did not want to shorten the amount of time required to trigger the bill's requirements or to force long-delayed planes to let passengers off because he wanted it to survive court challenges from the airline industry. The New York law has been upheld by one judge, but that ruling is being appealed.

"Clearly, even with this bill as law, there will still be inconveniences," Leno said.

But he said it could help encourage Congress to adopt a national passengers' bill of rights.