It isn't just low cost airlines that treat delayed pax badly. BA from IAH to LHR delayed due to a birdstrike on the inbound. Flight crew and ground engineer excellent, keeping pax informed on a person to person basis. Ground handling staff useless. Couldn't find my EI connecting flight which would be missed, even though I was on a through BA ticket with the BA codeshare flight number. Four hour delay with a packet of pretzels and a bottle of tepid water to keep us happy.

On approach to LHR a number of reconnections were read out. Not mine. Had to sort it out with Aer Lingus on the ground. Complained, tried for compensation, rejected three times. Now use LH via FRA, slightly inconvenient but better service and amazingly cheaper.

The best announcement regarding a delay I ever heard was, strangely enough, on Ryanair when an Irish Captain said something along the lines of "sorry for the (70 minute) delay but this aircraft has been working hard since six o'cock this morning. Every time it has tried to get away on time and this is its fourth trip into Europe today. It is now getting tired, not too tired to take you but tired of wrong paperwork, passengers not boarding on time and long waits to get in the air. So, we will get you there as quickly as we can, once they decide we can start engines"

A bit of humour and honesty usually works and dampens the agitation. Pax expect and respect being treated as intelligent adults and not school children who will do as they are told, because you tell them to.
Lowly ground staff are often not employees of the airline and so have little loyalty. They are not the most motivated link in the chain. "Operational reasons" is too bland. The airlines will try to get away with not having to carry the blame and thus compensation. It will always be smoke & mirrors unless it is obvious. More than once I've been a pax and listened in to ground staff conversations at the gate and discerned there was a crewing problem and not an ATC delay; but guess which we were told?

Very good and true post RAT 5. The last part reminded me of the day (quite some years ago) when my flight was delayed due to "air traffic control restrictions". It was not all that unusual in that period and I rang my colleague at FMP to get an update on the expected delay. "What delay" he replied! I presented the gate agents with my credentials, together with the details of my little chat to my mate at work, and suggested that the airline may wish to review its reason for the delay. The look of surprise on their faces was a sight to behold. Shortly after, a corrective announcement was made that the flight was delayed due to technical reasons :)

Slots for Scottish destinations over the last few days has been the norm. I didn't look up the slot code but suspect the guys at Prestwick are getting some new equipment installed so the flow rate for some sectors was reduced.

Philbky
It isn't just low cost airlines that treat delayed pax badly. BA from IAH to LHR delayed due to a birdstrike on the inbound.
Complained, tried for compensation, rejected three times.

Birdstrikes are not classed as 'extraordinary circumstances' so BA still owe you compensation. Regulation EU261 is the law, low cost or high.

Are you sure it wasn't to avoid the shout of FORE due to the noise over Troon as Monty was standing over a treacherous putt. The Scottish are very patriotic about their golfers.

AN OLDIE BUT GOODIE
 

This was doing the 'rounds' during my time at West Drayton in the eighties....

My pet hate is "we regret to announce a delay to flight xyz due to the late arrival of the inbound aircraft" in other words " its late because it's late"

In this day and age, it's easy to verify whether or not that's the case. If it is, schedules nowadays are so tight that the original delay causing the knock-on effect could be several sectors ago. I can't say, as a delayed pax, that I would be particularly interested in knowing what caused it.

YMMV.

You are confusing flexible ticket pricing and the low cost Business model - they really are differing things outside of the marketing men/womens offices.

Low cost is about reducing the fixed costs of doing business including out sourcing everything possible and moving resultant risk off of your books.

This means you have precious little control when things go wrong as the likes of Menzies or Swissport deliver the minimum of service to your customers at the coal face and the call centre staff may be in another country completely.

Recipe for poor customer experiences and it's not just those familiar orange/harp tailed and Vueling Guys as BA out source beyond Heathrow these days

When you say in these days - ATC and missed slot delays have been easy to identify since just about ever at airport information desks !

Telex based service has been around and used as long as schedule flights have existed !

The fact is many travellers are unable to comprehend that their getting to the gate 2 minutes late after their personal shopping on that 6.00 am departure to Malaga and consequential missed slot would lead to hundreds of other passengers being inconvenienced throughout the rest of the day !

Crewing
 

I believe that one or two outfits cancel flights with joyfull abandon at the slightest wiff of slots associated with any form of industrial action. Been chatting this through with an ops bod it would appear that the slots arent really that bad its just that certain outfits have close to zero crewing cover to handle any delays. One I know of regularly has no standby cover at all at a couple of bases. A colleague called in sick, flight delayed nearly 4 hours. Ac flown from other base with full crew. Delay was claimed as... Yes.... ATC..... No compensation? Blame ATC, save money.

But that's a legitimate delay code. 93. If late inbound and you get aircraft away within MGT. DL93

Be it legitimate or not, as far as I'm concerned it's totally pointless as an announcement. The point is that it's delayed and that's all I need to know. Obviously it's delayed for one of a myriad of reasons which will have affected that aircraft that day (or even the previous day in some cases). To tell me it will be late departing because it's late arriving is quite frankly taking the pi$$! Just announce the delay and try and be as accurate as possible about the new departure time.

That Oddie but Goodie from Wesy Drayton in the 80s is still true. I'm also a retired ATCO and when returning from holiday earlier this year, the wife and I were told by the company that our flight was delayed by earlier ATC problems. The captain, bless him, though was an honest man and admitted our delay was because his aircraft went tech and it took a while to transfer pax and baggage to the backup.

All we humans want is honest information and to be treated as sensible; not some hog-wash BS, or nothing at all. Simple facts.
We are dragooned into endless CRM sessions that emphasise good communications. Why, in airlines in general, do the powers that be think CRM is only a crew issue when on board. It should be a basic philosophy throughout the operation.

Should be a basic philosophy throughout life.

Because lying to customers and putting obstacles on the way to the truth can save a company money- provided the customer drops the effort to find the truth.

Indeed. True, not cynical.
A slight thread creep, but it does involve pax compensation. What are 'the rights'? Pax arrives at checkin in good time. Not all desks are served. Long delay, but still in time. Long delay at security due lack of staff, or technical breakdown of scan equipment. Pax gets to gate too late and misses flight. The root cause of the missed flight is the airport not the airline. What rights does the pax have and who do you claim from?

It's perfectly legitimate. It's telling you the aircraft isn't there yet. Most other delays involved the aircraft being at the Airport and another issue with it. Start giving reasons for previous delays and you can have a long list of delays throughout the day for the reason the last flight of the day is late. Pointless long announcement that will just cause more confusion.

Also most of the time the ground agents don't know the reason for the previous delays. Airline Operations will advise the delay reason via IATA Delay codes and often only the reason for the delay to that particular flight