Late because of late arriving
I’ve enjoyed the comical tone of this thread thank you for the entertainment. As to being told useless information about being late because the arriving jet was late; here is some more information for you to sift through.
Let’s say you and I show up at the departure gate for the flight. You are the paying passenger and I am one of the pilots. Our jet is an hour late. For me to find out why the jet is an hour late I have to pick up the phone and start making calls. The answer may be as simple as they had to fix a flat tire at the last airport, or it could be much more complex. For example it could be the delay started fourteen hours, three time zones and two working shifts ago. To trace the reason for the delay down the person I am talking to will have to spend an inordinate amount of time hunting down the past. And answer my question they must putt aside their own pressing current work load.
When I make such requests I expend valuable personal “capital”. My coworker has to respect me enough to be willing to extend their limited energy and time to hunt down the now distant reason for the delay. If I repeatedly make these kinds of requests/demands I will rapidly gain the reputation of being a real pain in the neck to work with. As such, I can expect much less cooperation with my future requests. Much of the time the work environment is extremely busy and people are tasked with completing demanding and sometimes complex tasks.
You and your travel experience are important. Delays are bad for you and bad for us. However, there are times when finding out the exact cause of the flight delay is more trouble than it is worth (to me); especially since there is nothing you or I can do about the already late arriving jet. I cannot change the circumstances. By doggedly pursuing the underlying cause of the delay I can add a tremendous amount of work to a coworker who is already task saturated.
If the jet is late I will probably ask my dispatcher why we are late. If the dispatcher doesn’t know they will offer to transfer my call to maintenance control. At this point in the conversation I need to make a decision. Is the time spent on hold and/or waiting for a call back worth the possible added delay and increased work load on others. Usually it is not, and takes away from what I should be doing to get my current flight out without incurring any added delay.
Respectfully