SACRAMENTO -- Kate Hanni's vacation was intended to be a relaxing trip that would give her family a chance to bond and help her recover from an assault she suffered while working as a real estate agent.

Instead, the plane ride turned into a nightmare when she was stranded on a tarmac for hours.

Now the Napa woman is helping push legislation to prevent the same thing from happening to other airline passengers.

Hanni, her husband and two sons were headed for Alabama in December 2006 when thunderstorms forced their flight to land in Austin, Texas. There they stayed for more than nine hours, sitting on the tarmac as the plane ran out of food, water and working toilets.

"No food or water, overflowing toilets, people going into diabetic shock. It was just horrifying...," she said. "Everything that you can imagine going wrong went wrong."

The incident led to the formation of the Coalition for an Airline Passengers' Bill of Rights. The consumer group is seeking legislation requiring airlines to provide passengers with basic necessities when they're stuck in grounded planes.

A California version of that bill is scheduled to be considered Monday by the Assembly Transportation Committee. Hanni, the coalition's founder and executive director, is planning to testify for it.

The measure, introduced by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, would require airlines to ensure that passengers have air, water, food, lights and working toilets if they are forced to wait on the tarmac for more than three hours at airports in California.

Airlines that fail to comply could find themselves facing lawsuits.

It's modeled after a New York law that was adopted last year after passengers were stranded on planes at Kennedy International Airport on Valentine's Day for more than 10 hours with no food and overflowing toilets.

Leno said he did not want to shorten the amount of time required to trigger the bill's requirements or to force long-delayed planes to let passengers off because he wanted it to survive court challenges from the airline industry. The New York law has been upheld by one judge, but that ruling is being appealed.

"Clearly, even with this bill as law, there will still be inconveniences," Leno said.

But he said it could help encourage Congress to adopt a national passengers' bill of rights.

The bill deals with preserving health and safety, a state concern, according to Leno.

But David Castelveter, vice president of communications for the Air Transport Association of America, an airlines group, contends the California and New York legislation constitute state regulation of airline customer service, which is pre-empted by federal law.

"There are a lot of reasons why you can't say you have to do this at certain hours," he said. "The industry is very complex. Airport operations are complex. Having a hodgepodge of state rules isn't the answer."

Sometimes, because of weather or other factors, it's impossible to restock delayed flights or return them to the gate, Castelveter said. Also, returning to the terminal could lose a plane's spot in the takeoff line or result in a canceled flight, he said.

Hanni said airlines don't like to return stranded flights to the gate because it could lead to demands from passengers for refunds, hotel vouchers, changes to other flights or payments for rental cars.

Castelveter said his organization has been working with the Department of Transportation to "find ways to improve the service we provide to our customers when there are lengthy tarmac delays."

A federal task force is working on some recommendations that could be given to the secretary of transportation by this summer, he added.

"We say that one lengthy delay where passengers are deprived of rights is one too many," Castelveter said. "But it is so rare that it doesn't constitute a need for federal legislation."

Out of 7.5 million domestic flights last year, 1,603 experienced "taxi-out times" of more than three hours, according Department of Transportation figures cited by Castelveter.

But Hanni said those figures don't take into account potentially millions of flights that are diverted, canceled or that temporarily return to the terminal. Accurate tarmac times are not kept for them, she said.

"It's not insignificant," she said. "It's really happening every week."

Here are some of the other bills on lawmakers' agendas this week:

FORECLOSURE RELIEF -- Senate President Don Perata, D-Oakland, is back with a new bill to try to head off residential foreclosures and force banks to keep foreclosed properties from falling into disrepair. A similar Perata bill failed by a single vote last year in the Senate. The new measure is scheduled to be considered Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

SMOKING BAN -- Sen. Jenny Oropeza is taking her anti-smoking campaign to the beach. Last year, the Long Beach Democrat convinced fellow lawmakers and the governor to ban smoking in cars carrying children. Now she has introduced a bill that would ban smoking at state parks and state beaches. It's on the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee's agenda Tuesday.

PREGNANT PARKING -- Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, wants to save some steps for pregnant women. His bill would allow women in the last three months of pregnancy and during the first two months after giving birth to park in handicapped spots. The measure is scheduled to be considered Monday by the Assembly Transportation Committee.

CALORIE COUNT -- Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Los Angeles, hasn't given up on trying to require restaurant chains to tell customers how many calories and how much fat, carbohydrates and salt are in their standard menu items. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the measure last year, but Padilla has reintroduced it. It's on the Senate Health Committee's agenda Wednesday.

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On the Net:

http://strandedpassengers.blogspot.com, www.senate.ca.gov and www.assembly.ca.gov