It's all about timely, accurate communication stupid
The bottom line is that people who are left in a information vacuum, lied to or deliberately mislead will react accordingly. Airlines have cut to the point that the people on the ground are uninformed or incapable of providing accurate timely information as to what is happening, as there are too few people, too much work and not enough time. As a result, passengers are fobbed off with meaningless drivel and lies. The industry has to take some responsibility for the consequences of it's actions. Passengers are behaving badly, I have witnessed it many times and I am not defending their actions. But I have seen many occassions when an aircraft has gone tech, the airline has no clue how they are going to solve the problem, so put an hours delay on the board. When that hour is up, they put another hour on, and so on. I was once kept dangling like this for over 9 hours in Milan and then at 11.45pm told the flight was cancelled. At that hour, there were no staff around to tell people what would be happening and this compounded the problem. This approach denies passengers the necessary information to make an informed decision and to solve their own problems. Had I known the delay could be up to 9 hours, I could have made the decision early on to cancel my trip, arrange to stay overnight, and re-book a later departure. I have been lied to many times and it reaches the point where trust has broken down and you no longer believe what the airline is telling you, even when they are telling the truth. To get respect, you have to give it. There is a lack of respect all around within the industry, and attitudes such as "you pay peanuts, you get monkeys", "what do you expect", "do you know how little we are paid" contribute nothing and exacerbate an already difficult situation.