Why oh why do airlines lie to us and continue to do so? Case in point: I recently went to London. When we landed in Heathrow, we taxied to our gate and pulled up short. The captain comes on over the PA and says that there’s another airplane at our gate and it will be about 10 to 15 minutes. Ok. 20 minutes later, he comes on again and says the same damn thing. He didn’t bother to come on again, before announcing that we were actually moving to the gate. It was an hour since we landed.

Of course, there’s the timeless delayed flight. The classic example of this is when the gate attendant tells you it’ll only be 15 minutes, but a quick look out the window shows you that there is no plane parked at the gate yet and we all know it takes some time to get the folks off the plane and cleaned and restocked.

Aarrgghh. So if there are any airplane personnel reading, please chime in – we’d love to understand why you and/or your employers insist on this tactic/approach to dealing with your customers (you know … the ones that pay a lot of money to be treated like cattle for hours on end!).