I have now learnt that what happened was that the previous days confirmed passengers were put on the scheduled afternoon flight with an extra aircraft arrivng later, sadly that plane had fewer seats. Therefore all the western passengers (not including me-the only non-nepali standby from the day before) were put on the first flight whereas the Nepali were bumped down to the next flight. However with less seats I lost my place...it all seems very strange and as someone who has been living and working in Nepal and has a corresponding affection for Nepalese I wasnt overly delighted to see them being screwed over with a 4 hour delay.