I wonder about the captain in charge! Either he is an impulsive young captain that let his ego take that decision or an one close to retirement that miss old times when both passenger and crews were much more mannered and less stressed than nowadays
Or perhaps he was trying to avoid further incidences of air rage.
I was unfortunate enough to be in a similar situation, pax were making snarky comments, swearing and being abusive to staff. Unfortunately this was due to lengthy ground delays then a mid-air return to departure airport. No alternative but to send crew to rest for 10 hours then come back and fly with these pax on the repaired a/c. During the flight things got progressively worse and deteriorated to the point of physical altercation between pax and cabin crew. One cc was even spat on by a pax!!
Had the captain on that flight decided to leave them all stranded it would have been a much better outcome. End result was, a few angry pax left everyone stranded when they diverted to have this to$$er arrested!
'Don't go assuming it's about ego. Quite possibly this decision prevented further delay/injury/drama.
I agree, the flow of information needs to be better- but having been ground staff, informing pax of the reasons for delay (e.g. technical fault, XX minutes to fix") invariably results in stupid comments from 99% of pax like, cant we fly without it?? When pax stop treating CC and groud staff like slaves then they will get a better reaction.
Next time you're delayed take a minute to watch how pax are treated by the CC.... the ones being to$$ers are inevitably given a minimum of attention, while crew will go all-out for those pax who remain polite and unabusive. Call them unprofessional if you like but what's the saying.... treat others as you would like to be treated?
We know pax pay our wages, they pay their kids teachers too but would they spit on her or called her a 'stupid bitch' if their kid got D's???