Government to expand airline tarmac-delay rule

The penalty for overbooking is fair. It's a gamble for the airline, and they already took the passenger's money to and wasted their time.
Penalties for ground delay of International flights is more complicated, those examples noted were greatly exacerbated by Customs & lack of ground facilities under the Airport Authority's control. this could actually lead to some corruption when the clock is ticking on the fines and the weather is bad.

Most of us do not book for fun and folly. We have the reasonable expectation that we can go from point A to point B. I really don't care who fouls up, the Airline or Airport. If the Airport Authority does not have adequate Customs facilities, it should share the penalty.

Weather however is a different story, and there is a whole lot of chains of communications that have to go on before someone decides if or if we do not push out of the gate. Having spent almost 13 hours at CVG one time for weather, I realize it can be touch and go. But don't shove us out onto the tarmac and wait forever whilst someone in an office somewhere fumbles with a decision.

If threshold A cannot be met, don't bother loading.

I agree the International Penalties are harsh. When you consider what happened at JFK, the airlines may not have known the extent of the caos until actually in the air. By then, its to late to just turn around and go home and wait it out. Its not fair to passengers to divert somewhere else not close to their intended destination. When the delays involve weather and a plane cannot get back to the stand within 4 hours, there are more than just airline faults. Its everyone from ground crew, ground control, ect. As stated above, it should be a shared responsibility.