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My wife is currently at Gatwick, supposed to have taken off 2 hours ago, but no update.... The frustrating thing is the complete lack of information. I cannot

• dylan604 8d ago
  Why the use of scare quotes? It's not their fault. The airline arranged for flight crew, had the plane available, yet something outside of their control is preventing them from doing the deed. It's no different to the airline if a sudden bit of weather came along preventing the flight from taking off.
  • donalhunt 8d ago
    I think the frustration comes from airlines not being able to accurately predict what the impact of a delay will be for the schedule for the remainder of the day, following day. They always hope they'll be able to recover some of the schedule with fast turnarounds. On a recent trip (when I encountered issues on every leg — cancellations, delays, missed connections, you name it), it is clear that airlines are incentivised to not communicate delays until it is clear the delay can't be recovered. In one case, at the airline's hub, the airport displays were showing a 2 hour delay and their app showed on-time departure (to the point I had to go and ask which source to trust). Having been a frequent flyer in the past I was able to determine that the delay was likely (but airlines can swap in equipment at hubs and mitigate the delay). Once you do have a delay the ripples are complex to handle. You have some passengers that were meant to connect to other flights. You have some that won't travel at all die to the cancellation. You then have 100+ people who you somehow have to accommodate in the coming days when flight loads are hopefully already 90+%. To be fair to my airline, their app was actually great at offering me a rebooking option the following day when my flight was cancelled. Unfortunately, the option I selected resulted in a non-direct flight with a transfer time that was impossible in reality (shouldn't have been offered in my opinion). I was literally rebooked 5mins after they declared the flight cancelled, skipped the queues back in the departure area (I don't think the local service agents even knew about the app) and drove home to my family for an extra night.
    • ccppurcell 8d ago
      I'm going to guess that they have really good predictions, it's just that it doesn't benefit them at all to reveal those to customers.
      • watwut 8d ago
        Because making prediction and being wrong is way worst then not making one. Plus, imo, they dont know what exactly will happen. There is likely whole bunch of negotiations and replannings going on in background with unsure results.
      • jdlshore 8d ago
        Why would you guess that? “Prediction is hard, especially when it’s about the future.”
  • chairmansteve 8d ago
    The problem is that the airlines don't let you know what is happening. They deliberately keep you in the dark.
    • exe34 8d ago
      If they told you, they might admit more than they actually need to be held responsible for, so no reason to go wasting shareholder value.
  • ljf 8d ago
    In the UK we use quotation marks when we are quoting some verbatim. Scare quotes are an Americanism that is gaining traction her, but normally we use it for quoting speach.
    • technothrasher 8d ago
      Why do you claim it is an Americanism? The term 'scare-quotes' was coined by a British philosopher, Elizabeth Anscombe, who references her use of them in a 1956 essay. This would imply that they were in use in British English at least by the 1950s, with no indication as to whether they were imported from US English.
      • ljf 5d ago
        Because we very rarely use the term here - it might have been coined here but it has only limited traction. Most people will call them quote marks/quotation marks, and realised that they mean the text is a direct quote of something that has been spoken or written.
  • Daviey 8d ago
    Because nobody in this situation is accountable. I agree the airline may not be to blame for the cause, but SOMEONE is... but NATS do not carry the same responsibility. It blows my mind that consumers have lots of protection from the airline, but we have no protection from ATC failures. As it happens, flight just got cancelled.. so airline is responsible for hotel and rebook. Which is also unfair on them.