Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank our guests for being here.
I have a unique opportunity. I've sat on both sides of the table, on all sides of this discussion. I've been on the front line of the airlines and I've worked in airports. I guess my frustration with this is that these circumstances aren't new; we have winter operations every year. My frustrations lie in the fact that we have winter operations debriefing in the spring on what we can do and what lessons we have learned that we can be better at for the next winter, yet we fell down this winter.
Given that perhaps it was extraordinary, I fail to see that. I guess one of the biggest questions I have is when is it ever acceptable that we have passengers sitting on aircraft for up to 12 hours, and in some circumstances, over 12 hours?
I'll open that up to our airline witnesses.