[alkonaut]

> I don't think it's reasonable for airlines to expect to maintain the same number of departures that worked in the nice summer months through the winter. Runways will need to be cleared, planes will need to be de-iced.

Exceptional/unexpected weather is one thing. But the concept of winter isn't exceptional. Deicing and snow clearing is a known factor. In Tampa that's an exceptional thing, in Helsinki it's not.

The thing with this regulation (and the EU one) is that airlines can't just compete on running with minimal margins and skeleton crews every days, where a single unscheduled repair or sick crewmember sends ripples of delays through the system. For travellers to have any security there needs to be some sort of slack in the system. A spare crew, or a spare plane. So how do you make that not a catastrophic market disadvantage? Like this. By making airlines economically responsible for delays.