eal401 said
"I am now in a situation, however, where I'd never ever complain on an aircraft for fear of ending up in irons and shopped to the police at the other end. "
But won't you write a stinking letter after you got back, with a demand for compensation, copies to the newspapers and if there was any chance, suing the airline? And name each one of the crew who had upset you? And if there was anything to complain to the CAA about (such as letting passengers in exit rows have bags behind their legs on take off - seen on both American and BMI by me some years ago) which would cause problems, won't you do it? The probable cost to the airline of handling complaints and bad publicity (and the aggravation for crew of a number of 'please explains') suggest to my mind that trying hard to keep the SLF happy might actually be worthwhile. Why, they might even pay to fly with that airline again!
The problem is that at the end of the day, any delay problem of any sort leads to the crew being regarded as responsible, whether they are or not. This is because they are perceived as being the airline's representatives: anything they do wrong is something the airline has done wrong.
Maybe the ticket doesn't guarantee when travel will take place, but there will come a stage where the test of reasonableness comes in. Doubtless Flying Lawyer can tell us how long one could be b******d about for before some sort of legal redress for breach of contract applies. Poor timekeeping doesn't help keep customers, either.
Think I'll stick to BA, even though I can't help laughing every time the Captain really is called Nigel - and there do seem to be a lot of them!