Jamesair,
Every year one airline seems to experience a great number of delays - all the major charter carriers have had it including TCX and BY and it seems this year is XL's turn.
When pax refuse to board an aircraft due to safety concerns, this is obviously very worrying and is a matter which must be addressed. However, does anyone honestly think an engineer would sign the a/c off if he was not 100% happy? Also, do you think a captain would operate the flight?
I appreciate where you are coming from, but we are in the industry and deal with this everyday so I guess am seeing this from the airlines perspective.