alternatively telling passengers a story which is clearly untrue.
This happened on my last flight with FlyBe, which was delayed by an hour "due to an air traffic delay to the first flight of the day" per the flight deck announcement. This aircraft does 4 return trips between the same airports each day. The airport flight arrivals board web page for arrivals at each airport showed the first 3 sectors to have operated on time.
When the announcement was made I groaned and said the the cabin attendant sitting opposite me that that was simply untrue. He readily agreed and said that the flight crew had been told to say that by ops. He explained that the delay had actually been caused by an engineering issue and by the lack of the right engineer to sign off the fault. He said it happens all the time, and he often sees frequent flying pax shaking their heads in disbelief.
It is wrong for any employer to intentionally misinform or tell staff to lie to their customers. It is particularly concerning when those staff obliged to tell tales are professionals and more so when the business is in aviation.
If anyone from FlyBe management reads this could I suggest that they set about changing the culture that allows these tales to be told. Right now it's merely misinforming the pax, but worse might happen if it becomes endemic.