Years ago as a passenger on a BA flight from Kenya to UK I was targeted by crooks who concocted a story our hotel bill had not been paid. This required me to be removed from the aircraft for 30 minutes. When I reboarded, the captain announced that due to our delayed pushback, we had missed our takeoff slot and being last flight of the day, contractors were scheduled to be on the runway so we couldn't taxi without compensating the contractors. Negotiations failed and the 747 edged back to the gate and disgorged it's pissed off cargo into hotels for the night. Thankfully the Captain announced the delay to pushback was due to a "medical emergency" and not connected to me. The skipper was aware that my removal was part of the extortion plan. I was chosen as I had many bags and so couldn't have been quickly booted off the flight. In principle I think flight crew should inform passengers of what is going on. The captain did relay a blow by blow description of the negotiations but wisely decided to fudge the cause of the delayed pushback thus removing me from being the target of any potential aggression from other passengers with whom we shared bus and hotel and re-checkin..
On another occasion, my camera crew were booked on a commuter flight in USA on an ATR. It was delayed as the aircraft had a tech issue with pressurization so it required more fuel to fly at a lower altitude. I was aware of the issue because I had demanded an answer from ground crew as to why our camera cases were being removed from the plane. He explained the tech issue and they had to remove bags as they would be bumping passengers from the flight as they had to take on more fuel. As we were sitting on the bus adjacent the aircraft other passengers who were not aware of the pressurization issue, were watching the cargo hold being emptied and began to blame us for the delay, claiming we had too much baggage and that we should be bumped off the flight! (we were easily identified as camera crew as we hand carry the camera)
Fearing we would be the easy target to be bumped I announced to the bus the reason for the delay and informed them that we had notified informed the airline of the weight of our baggage. When I slowly and clearly stated that there was a *tech issue* with the plane, you could hear a pin drop. Then the fuelling truck had its own tech issue, so it was a pretty uninspiring scene being played out infront of passengers.
When ground crew finally boarded the bus and asked for volunteers to be bumped, a dozen grateful hands shot up, which created enough capacity for us to continue, with our baggage.
This was a case where communications between airline and passengers were not timely.
Mjb