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Gone are the days when a traveler's worst nightmare was losing luggage or getting stuck in an airport.

This holiday season, as an estimated 9 million people clog the nation's skies and airports, getting stuck on a plane might seem more frightening.

With stories of passengers trapped on planes for 12 hours or more without food or water, one state lawmaker is looking to protect fliers from a claustrophobic experience, at least while they're on the ground in Arizona.

State Rep. Jonathan Paton said he plans to introduce a "passengers' bill of rights" that would require airlines to provide food, water and clean toilets on the plane if it spends more than three hours stuck on a runway at Tucson International Airport or Sky Harbor in Phoenix.

The bill, which would apply only to Phoenix and Tucson, also would create a "fliers' advocate" at each airport to log complaints.

Airlines would face a civil penalty if they did not comply, and a fine up to $1,000 for each passenger — which could add up since jet airliners hold hundreds of people.

Paton, a Tucson Republican, said that if a plane sits at least three hours on a runway apron, the airline would need to make sure there is adequate electricity to provide fresh air.

"They need to make sure that in Phoenix in August, people aren't sweating bullets if the power shuts down," Paton said. Airlines also would need to service the restrooms and provide adequate food and water.

The bill is likely to face opposition from the airline industry, which is fighting a similar law in New York on the grounds that a state's right to regulate airlines is pre-empted by federal law.

Last week, a federal judge in Albany declared that law — identical to what Paton is suggesting — appropriate, immediately promoting an appeal from the airline industry.

The industry's position is that commercial aviation is best regulated by the federal government, not 50 different states, said David Castelveter, vice president of communications for the Air Transport Association of America. But the association has lobbied against similar regulations on the federal level, saying market forces should control customer service.

Paton said the state needs to step in because the federal government has not, and the airlines appear unwilling to regulate themselves.

"I think most people would agree that the quality of service that passengers get has been declining by almost every measurement, and I think it's getting to the point where we're seeing incidents that go above and beyond the pale of how you treat people," he said. "I don't want to wait for the pond-water slowness of the federal government to actually do something."

While there haven't been any major incidents of trapped passengers reported in Arizona, others have been well-documented around the country. Last December, a flight rerouted from Dallas to Austin, Texas, sat on the runway for more than eight hours as passengers watched other planes land and take off.

The delays can be expensive for airlines. In 2001, Northwest Airlines settled a class-action lawsuit for more than $7 million from 7,000 passengers who were stuck on grounded airplanes during a 1999 storm in Detroit.

The problem is a non-issue in Tucson, where no one can remember a plane ever getting stuck on the runway. With the 67th-busiest airport in the country, Tucson has few connecting flights and so little traffic that planes have no trouble reaching their gates once they land, airport spokeswoman Paula Winn said.

"If we had a situation where all of our gates are full, we have stairs, and we'd get people off airplanes," she said.

But at Sky Harbor, the sixth-busiest airport in the country, the situation could be more problematic for the estimated 2,000 Tucsonans who use Phoenix's airport each day.

With 3 percent to 5 percent growth per year in the number of passengers at the airport, Deborah Ostreicher, deputy aviation director, said Sky Harbor is prepared to build another concourse and terminal to prevent traffic jams.

"It's not common practice here," she said of planes waiting on the runway for long periods of time. "I wouldn't want to say that never happens, but currently, with the number of gates we have, our capacity is working."

Still, as New York's law tests the legal waters, Paton is determined to shepherd his bill through the Legislature before a major incident here. "It's happening across the country and both airports are getting busier, and it could happen," he said.

Listen to radio activity at Tucson International Airport's tower using StarNet's scanner at go.azstarnet.com/scanner.