A more direct assault on the passenger's rights regulations came last week from Jeff Smisek, the normally soft-spoken chief executive of Continental Airlines. He called the rules "stupid" and "inane" and then threatened the nation's airline passengers with retribution.

"The government, by God, says, 'We're going to fine you $27,500,'" Smisek thundered. "Here's what we're going to do. We're going to cancel the flight…. In the face of a fine like that, we're going to cancel a lot of flights."

First, you should understand Smisek's bias: A regional jet painted in Continental's colors, carrying the name Continental Express, and using Continental's "CO" computer code was the aircraft where those flyers spent an August night trapped on the tarmac in Rochester, Minnesota. Continental and the plane's operator, ExpressJet, were each fined $50,000 as part of the Transportation Department's $175,000 total penalty.

Vested interest notwithstanding, Smisek's threat makes no sense. For starters, there's that optics issue: Who, exactly, is going to sympathize with Continental, or any airline, for holding passengers hostage as opposed to canceling a flight facing a four-, five- or six-hour ground delay?

Then there's the financial reality. Smisek's vow to cancel flights will cost Continental, or any airline, a ton of revenue. When it proactively closed its Newark hub and canceled virtually all of its flights there during two days of snowstorms last month, Continental said it sacrificed $25 million worth of revenue. Even without closing any hubs, US Airways (losing $30 million) and Southwest Airlines (out $15 million) were punished by weather-related cancellations in February.

And consider the operational facts: Flight cancellations play havoc with airline schedules. They leave both aircraft and crews out of position, thus jeopardizing many other flights on the day's schedule and forcing many passengers to rebook flights the next day or even several days later. Airlines only cancel flights when and where there is literally no other practical alternative.

There is also the regulatory truth: The new DOT rules are flexible, allowing for logical exemptions from the three-hour rule on a flight-by-flight basis. And the $27,500-a-passenger fine is the maximum the DOT says that it would impose. As the Rochester incident last year showed, the per-passenger fine is likely to be dramatically lower.

So without a constituency to support long tarmac holds and no plausible financial or operational reason to willy-nilly cancel flights, what's all the airline posturing really mean?

In a word: Nothing. Faced with punitive fines, the airlines might cancel a few more flights than before. More often than not, however, they will adjust their schedules and on-the-ground procedures to make sure passengers aren't held on aircraft longer than the three-hour limit.

Most likely, the waiting time won't disappear, though. It'll shift from aircraft to the airport terminal. You know, those places specifically designed to accommodate waiting passengers. Those places with restaurants, restrooms, bars, and clubs. And freely accessible doors that permit you to leave whenever it suits your schedule.

Don't think this simple switch would make a difference? Then consider Virgin America Flight 404 from Los Angeles to JFK last Saturday. A hellacious wind and rainstorm forced Virgin 404 to divert to Stewart International Airport, about 75 miles to the north. And there the aircraft sat for more than four hours before passengers were released from captivity and placed on buses to get them to New York City. From start to finish, their travel day lasted 14 hours. This grim tale comes complete with video from a traveler who documented the disaster.

The Fine Print…

British Airways and its flight attendants are in a battle over concessions and new work rules the airline has unilaterally imposed. Failing a last-minute resolution, the flight attendant's union says it will strike on March 20 through 22 and March 27 through 30. BA has posted some worst-case flight schedules and procedures, but airlines have a poor track record for flying reliably through strikes.