Joe Biden’s Visit To Leno’s Couch Stops Traffic At LAX

Vice President Joe Biden, a favorite of the media for (among other things) his reliable ability to produce a headline-friendly gaffe, was less popular with a planeloads of passengers stranded at LAX on Friday including the Wrap’s Sharon Waxman who penned a fuming piece on the incident.

The VP was in town to do the Leno show and apparently the flight restrictions incurred by his visit screwed up traffic at LAX.

A spokesman for the vice president said he was unaware of the FAA temporary flight restriction that stopped flights coming in, and delayed those going out.

“I know we didn’t ask for anything,” Biden’s spokesman James Carney told TheWrap. “There was no sign of any stoppage. And there shouldn’t have been one.”

Oh, but there was. Passengers were stuck for anywhere from 45 minutes to four hours as a result (including this writer), leaving many of them fuming.

“I sincerely hope that the vice president was oblivious to the number of lives he inconvenienced by deciding to land at LAX and his attempted humor on the Tonight Show,” said Will Roos, the owner of an environmental company GreenUp who was on his way back from a business trip in Sun Valley.

The Biden people seemed puzzled by all the fuss:

”We regularly fly into large commercial airports. We work with the FAA and everyone involved to minimize the impact we have,” said spokesman Edwin Donovan. “Restrictions get put in place when the vice president flys into an airport. There’s going to be some impact on flights. But we have no information to show any great delay or any impact at LAX.”

All in all, sounds like a regular day at LaGuardia, Vice President or not.