To understand the defining moment behind Kate Hanni's crusade for hapless airline passengers, you have to go back further than Dec. 29. That was the date when Hanni and her family left the San Francisco airport bound for Dallas and were stranded on the tarmac for more than nine hours, along with hundreds of other American Airlines passengers, because of violent thunderstorms sweeping across Texas.
Being stuck on a plane with little food, even less communication from the flight crew, overflowing toilets and anxious mothers using T-shirts as makeshift diapers for their infants made Hanni feel like a victim. And she'd felt that way before, nine months earlier.
