It realy is funny that people expect and demand things when it comes to air travel, and not with any other form of transport.
How many of us expect to be given meal vouchers, or a hotel when the train from Victoria to Manchester is delayed for hours, or even cancelled. How about when the commuters going in to London have to accept cancelations of trains because of works on track etc.? Do you expect the companies to pay for your taxi? Travelling by bus is the same thing, sometimes the bus is late and you arrive at destination 6-7 hours later than expected. Does anyone expect compensation from the bus companies while waiting for a delayed bus? I think that all of us have to realize that traveling by air is just like any other transport service and just as things evolve so should our views and expectations. I am sure that the travelling public in the early 1900s expected compensation from the train company if anything out of the ordinary happened. As the economy grows and more an more people travel the transport sector changes aswell. In the early 1900s trains were for the rich, up until recently so was air travel. These days however, with many private small airlines, with the LCCs and even with the big carriers introducing low fares you cannot expect to have everything. You can either have cheap tickets, or you can pay high fares and enjoy all the things you think you get for free such as meal vouchers hotels etc, if your airplane is delayed or the flight is cancelled. There is no Santa Clause in consumer transactions, someone somewhere pays for it.