1) Many US passengers choose an airline by the ticket price. Does that ticket price sensitivity motivate their VP of Flight Ops or Dispatch supervisors to "suggest" that Dispatchers use 'creative' weather forecast reports?
2) Consider again exactly where the main hub is located.
3) Many US passengers are totally indifferent to the quality of maintenance (as long as the plane arrives about on-time without a crash), the resultant problems when extreme outsourcing is the management mantra, or issues related to serious flightcrew fatigue.
4) The ticket price determines many of these other situations. The 'WalMartization' of the American consumer's attitudes, whereby he/she expects a product to sell at or barely above the productions costs, has also been created by the airline industry, which is considered the worst-managed industry by those in other businesses. Were some of their APUs on MEL-or just the bleed air?
Such extremely long waits on the ground are not justifiable, but under normal circumstances, when people will only pay the very lowest fares to fly, many of us up front in the c0ckp1t (whose safety has recently been compromised by extreme outsourcing) have little sympathy for (not all) many passengers' inability or outright refusal to comprehend the results of their self-centeredness.
Next time your plane is de-iced, isn't it cheaper and quicker when the ground crew only de-ices ONE of your wings?? When a guy takes a wand to check the upper wing for clear ice and goes instead to the tail (a t-tail sits much higher-get it?... the 'upper' wing??) and the wand gets stuck in the elevator, is outsourcing a good thing? Luckily, a very senior Check Airman was reportedly the Captain.
Your Honour, I rest my case. May I leave the bench?