I fully understand the sentiments of the crew. Last year I operated back from Milan after arriving more than 3 hours late in the previous evening due to a technical fault at base. Upon arrival the Airport Manager was contact in order to reschedule the departing morning flight so that we could have legal minimum rest (after reducing our time at the hotel to the absolute legal minimum).
The following morning, on a remote stand with buses, the first pax through the door made a sarcastic comment about 'did you sleep well then?'. After further investigation it transpired that the flight had NOT been rescheduled, the gate staff had been told that we overslept and, with great glee, they actually informed the Pax that that was the reason for the delay.
Subsequently we refused to depart until we had briefed the passengers on the real reason for the delay and then we refused to depart until the airport manager came on to the aircraft and apologised to the passengers over the PA for misleading information. After much arguing and a thorough flick through the manuals explaining to this moron that we can't have 6 hours off then fly again with a 1 hour taxi ride each way, he made his PA.
To their credit, at that point the passengers we very understanding. The gate staff had only been doing what they were told it was ultimately the Airport Managers poor communication that caused a possibly explosive situation. If we don't stand up to these to$$ers then we only have ourselves to blame.
It's about time the passengers started reacting to these totally unacceptable delays. They pay your wages and hopefully make the airline a profit. It's about time they were stopped being treated like cattle and the airlines forced to pay compensation for late departures, after all it's their fault by not having sufficient spares about , both aircraft and liveware.
Ironically I think you will find that most flight crew agree wholeheartedly that delays are annoying and a dreadful inconvenience. We try our absolute best every day, every flight to get the flight away on time. Unfortunately this is not like the military where we can fly outside of General Air Traffic rules hence we are dependent upon a vast multitude of factors coming together. Airport space is a costly premium, just about no airline has stores on the field these days, the space is taken up with shops and terminals. Runways are at full to bursting capacities, miss your slot because the tug was late? Back of the queue for the next slot. Short of staff at Brussels? Reroute to avoid horrendous slot delays adding 30 minutes on to the flight time, arrive 35 minutes late but better that 4 hours. Should we still be publicly harangued? These factors are what we juggle EVERY DAY. Not once or twice a week or once or twice a month. So when you take umbridge at staff just remember they have seen your complaints many, many times and, whilst they may be valid to you and to us, there is little we can do about it until our creaking infrastructure is modernised. But of course we can't do that without a 15 year planning application and a war from the Green brigade.