airlines that leave passengers stranded on a tarmac in a delayed plane for three hours or more can face a hefty fine under new rules adopted by the U.S. Department of Transportation

airlines that leave passengers stranded on a tarmac in a delayed plane for three hours or more can face a hefty fine under new rules adopted by the U.S. Department of Transportation.If carriers don’t let passengers out of the plane before the three-hour mark, the agency can fine them up to $27,500 per customer.

At least three domestic airlines have announced plans to avoid the penalties. But that won’t necessarily cut down on delays.US Airways and Continental Airlines have both unveiled procedures to return the plane to the gate if it can’t take off before the three-hour limit.American Airlines Chief Executive Gerard Arpey said his carrier the nation’s second-largest has modified a previous plan to unload passengers stranded four hours or longer.

US Airways, the sixth-largest domestic carrier, announced its plans in an employee newsletter last week.For example, if a US Airways flight is delayed 90 minutes, the crew offers drinks and snacks to avoid a fine that applies if fliers are delayed for two hours without food and water.

After 2 1/2 hours, the airline’s operations center makes a decision: Either return the plane to the gate or, if a takeoff is imminent, keep it in line on the tarmac.In 2009, US Airways alone had 193 flights that were delayed more than three hours. If each had an average of 200 passengers, under the new rules the fines could add up to more than $1 billion.It is unclear what happens to a flight after it returns to the gate, but American’s Arpey predicted bad news for passengers: “Most certainly, it will result in more cancellations.”

Costliest city is still New York

If you can afford to stay in New York, you can afford to stay anywhere.The 2010 rankings for the most expensive cities for business travelers put New York at the top again, with the average daily cost for food, hotel and a car rental totaling $622.The results came from the annual survey of hotel, restaurant and car rental costs by the Business Travel News, a publication for business travel managers, of 100 U.S. travel destinations. New York topped the list last year and in 2008 as well.

White Plains, N.Y., and Detroit inched up in the list, with hotel and car rental prices rising in both cities.Las Vegas, on the other hand, dropped on the list.Last year, Sin City ranked as the nation’s 30th most expensive city to visit. It fell to 45th this year, below such cities as Oakland, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.Honolulu ranked ninth in the 2009 survey but dropped to 20th this year, below Minneapolis, Austin and Detroit.

Most hospitality experts blame what they call the “AIG affect” for the drop in hotel and restaurant prices at cities with a reputation for luxury and frivolity.After the insurance giant American International Group Inc.took a federal bailout in 2008, it hosted a junket for senior executives at the St. Regis Monarch Beach resort and was then stung by public outrage. Since then, image-conscious executives have avoided holding corporate meetings in places known for fun and opulence.

“There is still a huge residual from the AIG affect,” said Carl Winston, the director of the hospitality and tourism management program at San Diego State University.Los Angeles dropped to 16th on the list this year from 13th in 2009, based on cheaper car rental rates.Prank tells guests to break windowYou are asleep in a hotel room, and a frantic caller warns you that the building is on fire, instructing you to pull the fire alarm and break the window.

The American Hotel & Lodging Assn. has issued a warning, telling hotel guests to think twice before following such instructions. Prank callers have been victimizing hotel guests in California, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida and Nebraska, the trade group warned.The group advises hotel guests who get such a call to phone the front desk to see if the emergency is legitimate.In Orlando, Fla., the victim of such a prank busted a hotel window with part of a toilet after his wife took the call. “When I broke the window, I got suspicious,” the hotel guest told the Orlando Sentinel. “It didn’t seem right, but she was panicking, so I continued.”

Winter storm plods through West, (MidwestDust Storm Accidents)

Winter storm plods through West/ Dust Storm Accidents

DENVER  A fast-moving winter storm is promising to bring a white Christmas to parts of the West and Midwest, but not without threatening to cause long delays and tough driving conditions for countless holiday travelers.The storm is expected to dump more than a foot of snow on parts of Colorado and Southern Utah by midday Wednesday, and blow east into the Plains states through Christmas Day. Blizzard warnings were likely on Christmas Eve in Kansas.”Pretty much the entire central and southern Rockies are going to get snow, and then it’s going east and will drop more snow,” Stan Rose, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Pueblo, Colo.With the snowstorm looming, holiday travelers scrambled Tuesday to adjust their plans.

In Denver, Sarah McAnarney and her husband planned to leave town Wednesday to visit family in Ozark, Mo., with their springer spaniel, Olive. But forecasts prompted them to skip a day of skiing in the Rockies and start driving a day early.

McAnarney said she was caught in a blizzard two weeks ago in the Rockies and needed four hours to drive 100 miles from Vail to Denver. She said she didn’t want to repeat the experience.”I was driving through a whiteout,” she said Tuesday at a truck stop east of Topeka, Kan. “You couldn’t see over your headlights.”

On Tuesday, blustery weather was already snarling traffic in Arizona, with blizzard-like conditions shutting down roads and causing a pileup involving 20 vehicles. South of Phoenix, a dust storm set off a series of collisions that killed at least three people.A tropical jet stream pumping in moisture from the storm’s south was likely to cause plenty of snow as the storm heads into the Plains states.South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds declared a state of emergency Tuesday, giving his state more flexibility to prepare.

A winter storm watch was in effect for most of southeast Colorado, the panhandle of Oklahoma and north Texas through Thursday. By Tuesday afternoon, light snow was falling in Salt Lake City. No major airport delays were reported there or in Denver, but holiday travelers across the region were warned to check with their airlines before arriving for flights.In western Nebraska, a Colorado woman was killed Tuesday on Interstate 80 when her SUV apparently hit black ice and slid across a median.

In Nevada, multiple wrecks were reported in and around Reno as snow blanketed the area shortly before the Tuesday evening commute. No serious injuries were reported, the Reno Gazette-Journal newspaper reported.

Meanwhile, many holiday travelers in the region decided to adjust their plans. Craig Rueschhoff and his girlfriend, Brenna Larson, planned to leave Des Moines, Iowa, on Tuesday evening instead of Wednesday night to make the 210-mile drive to Columbus, Neb., to visit his parents.Rueschhoff, 35, said they also planned to visit Larson’s parents in western Iowa on their way back to Des Moines but thought about skipping the annual trip.

“We’ve had both my mom and her mom encourage us not to come if the weather is too bad,” he said. “They wouldn’t feel bad if we didn’t come. We’ve gotten their blessing.”

The winter conditions follow a weekend storm that dropped record snowfall and interrupted holiday shopping and travel on the East Coast. Delays from that storm sparked an unruly crowd that included passengers still on standby Tuesday at the Delta Air Lines terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. Police were called to help with crowd control.

Rose said holiday revelers in the West and Midwest should worry about the cold as well as the snow. Temperatures across Colorado on Christmas were not expected to get out of the 20s, with single-digits expected in the mountains.“It’s going to be cold to begin with, and then it’s going to get even colder,” Rose said.

Democratic health care deals 'sleazy'

Barack Obama

WASHINGTON A Republican senator who has opposed President Barack Obama’s health overhaul effort said Tuesday that the deals Democratic leaders have cut to round up the votes they need to push the measure through the Senate have been “sleazy.“Speaking Tuesday on NBC’s “Today” show, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina cited concessions won by Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson, whose support gave Democrats the 60th and final vote they need. Among other things, Nelson won an agreement that the federal government will pay to expand Medicaid services in Nebraska.

Said Graham: “That’s not change you can believe in. That’s sleazy.”Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa defended the concessions, saying: “The one that’s being talked about for Nebraska, it also benefits other states. It’s not just Nebraska.”

He also said he would vote for the package even if it didn’t contain concessions for Iowa. “The principle of this bill overrides everything,” Harkin told CBS’ “Early Show.”

Graham rejected criticism leveled by some Democrats that GOP opposition to Obama’s health care effort is being driven by extremists.”I’m not a member of a militia, I’m not a birther,” he said, referring to those who have questioned, inaccurately, whether Obama is an American citizen. “I’m a senator who wants to reform health care, but I’m not going to allow my country to become a socialized nation when it comes to health care.”

Harkin described the debate as “a demarcation line.He explained: “On one side is health care as a privilege. On the other side is health care as a right. With these votes, with the vote that we’ll take before Christmas, we will cross that line finally and say that health care is a right of all Americans.”The Senate had procedural votes Tuesday morning on the overhaul bill and Democrats are pushing for final passage before Christmas.