On Apr 5, 4:23*pm, bob wrote:

[1] Lots of times when I was based in Cambridge, when I'd turn up at
King's Cross to find some kind of problem on the next Cambridge train,
I would have no idea whether it was a problem with this particular
train, and I should wait for the next one, or if the whole ECML was
screwed (eg wires down at Stevenage), and I should go to Liverpool
Street. *

Try dealing with that when travelling by air, when airlines will
pretty much point blank refuse to tell you what is actually going on.

"Late arrival of the inbound aircraft" is not a helpful piece of
information, and it may as well not be given. But why not give a
useful piece of information that passengers can use to work out how
long it's likely to be?

A couple of months ago I spent about 3 hours standing at a gate at
Geneva airport as the delay minutes went up by 20 minutes every 20
minutes. This is silly; I could have gone to a restaurant and eaten
had they told me the aircraft hadn't even left Luton yet - that would
give a minimum of an hour and a half. But nobody knew or was willing
to say.

Neil