i was just reading something the other day about the tarmac delay legislation in the US. (The rest is from memory so ISTBC ...) There are rules about providing refreshments around 2 hours and offloading passengers after 3 hours. This was brought in about 10 years ago after a horrendous ice storm stranded many passengers in planes for hours.

It seems that the legislation has actually compounded the problems overall. Dealing wtih offloading passengers and handling rebooking requests has increased the average delay per passenger. I guess it's an example of 'be careful what you wish for'.

That said, while I've had a few such delays, they do seem pretty rare and I always figure people are doing the best they can, so I try to chill and not get wound up by it. Long haul travel is such an inefficient beast anyway, that another hour or two rarely makes a difference. But I'm lucky in that most of the time I'm flying direct. I am sure I'd be stressing if I were connecting.