...Then, a year later, I was scheduled to fly on Delta from Pensacola to Miami. When I got to the counter, the agent told me the flight was canceled. She volunteered nothing else. So I calmly suggested that she invoke Rule 240. Once she knew that I knew the rule — and only then — did she rewrite my ticket, and those of the passengers in line behind me, and we got to Miami that day on an unusual routing: Pensacola to New Orleans and then on to Miami. Rule 240 allowed me to get to where I needed to go.

I've written about Rule 240 for years. And yet, every time I tell people about it, there are those who claim that my information is either out of date or plain wrong. That's led to more confusion, and in at least one case a writer argued that I had simply fabricated Rule 240 out of thin air.

Well, I didn't make up Rule 240. It was created by the old Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) way before the days of airline deregulation. And the rule clearly stated what an airline's responsibilities were to passengers in the event of a flight cancellation or delay...