I had booked a cruise to the South Pacific for myself and 3 children (1 is at uni in Adelaide) so booked the flights giving about 24 hours before boarding the ship.
SMS message at 10:50 flight delayed due engineering requirements departure 16:35.
SMS message at 10.56 flight delayed due engineering requirements departure 16:55.
SMS message at 11:55 flight delayed due engineering requirements departure 19:35.
During the last 2 SMS's I tried to get some more detail on back up plan if aircraft stays U/S or crew run out of duty time and flight need to be cancelled.
Basically weighing up all options to get to the port in time to make the cruise.
I got no info from the airline and was simply told I could get a refund on my tickets, the only other flights for the 3 of us to get to port in time was the following morning business class on another airline. This gave us around 1 hour to get to the port - not ideal.
I contacted my travel insurance company to see if the cost of the business class tickets would be covered as they were cheaper than the cruise - you can put in a claim but it is not really covered, you might get lucky. Also turns out the cruise is not covered by insurance because I could not make it because of engineering requirements. A bit shocked at this stage.
I some how found out the inbound flight was delayed (think I rang the local airport) and from memory it was weather. I got on to flight tracker and found it still had not left that airport. After about 15 mins I saw it take off and was somewhat relieved, we had a chance to make the cruise.
* Delays are fine and will happen just don't report it until you have information and plans to tell the SLF so they can make plans accordingly.
In this case they jumped the gun by an hour in delaying the flight.
They would have been better saying the inbound flight #xxx has been delayed (has departed/ is expected to depart).
If your flight can not depart by xx:xx time it will need to be cancelled/delayed due to crew duty hour limits set by law.
If the delay is at the airport then the cause of the delay should be known by the captain and in his absence the rest of crew in seniority.
The SMS could be sent to pax
Delayed due to
sick crew
late catering
weather
need more fuel
ground service equipment failure
paperwork discrepancies
or what ever is most relevant and give a realistic delay time.