I was on a delayed flight from Birmingham to GVA on Wednesday - we did the usual route over France, but the (Easyjet) pilot commented that the answer to the "why not just avoid France" question was that the other routes were now at capacity, so it was no improvement on waiting for a route through French airspace.
The pilot and his crew were great in the circumstances - they emailed ahead so that an announcement was made at the airport that they had run out of sandwiches/hot food, so anyone who needed to could buy food before boarding. When we finally boarded he came out of the cockpit to tell us in person that there would be another hour's delay on the tarmac, gave us as much information as he could, then welcomed the children into the cockpit for a visit and a chat (which made all the difference to my two - turned a dull wait into a really cool experience). Top marks.
(this was on sector 3 of a very delayed 4-sector day and when I asked about hours he said they were already into discretion).