...at least at Continental Airlines.

Since along with everything else in life, we "need" the government to "protect" us from extremely delayed flights, the morons in the government have come up with a law that establishes that "airlines can be fined up to $27,500 per passenger if planes are delayed three hours and passengers can't get off." Continental Airlines has decided to get around this ridiculous new law by stating that it will cancel any flight that will be delayed rather than risk the fine. (By the way, does the $27,500 per passenger go to each "injured" passenger? Not!) The CEO of Continental says that these sort of extended delays are rare, and are "mostly caused by an outdated air traffic control system that the government has failed to upgrade." (No!! Really??)

Of course, the unintended consequence of this government-forced decision by Continental is that there will then be fewer flights and, therefore, even more delays for passengers (even though they won't be experiencing the delays by sitting in grounded planes for over three hours).