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Why are they so bad at giving updates to passengers?
Trains routinely have the world “delayed” on the display screen but no info on why and for how long.
Airports do the same, no info a why a delay is happening or how long it’ll take to fix.
This just leads to very frustrated passengers and staff getting asked the same question every 10 mins.
Probably the number of different teams involved and the plus they probably want to avoid getting hopes up only to dash them and face the baying mob.
Friend is a pilot and when I asked him he said often they don't know. They've got the equivalent of a fault light as they do checks, don't know what it means until engineers can be sorted to look at it, and probably don't want to tell people there's something faulty on the metal tube that's about to carry them 30K feet into the sky until they know it's properly fixed / fixable. He said the number of times they fly with known faults, you don't want to know! (of course not safety critical ones)
Probably the number of different teams involved and the plus they probably want to avoid getting hopes up only to dash them and face the baying mob.
I get that, but would a “there’s an issue with XYZ, we’re not sure how long it’ll go sort, but we’ll keep you informed” followed by announcements every 15/30 mins not be better for everyone?
They started telling you on GWR trains a while ago. They'd come on and say 'we're stopped at a signal, because the 1833 from Birmingham New St was late leaving' or sometimes 'we're stopped at a signal and we don't know why, we'll let you know when we find out'.
I get that, but would a “there’s an issue with XYZ, we’re not sure how long it’ll go sort, but we’ll keep you informed”
As per my earlier answer, they might not want you to know at that point.
With the number of variables involved - air traffic, engineers, pilots, ground staff - it's probably pretty difficult to provide accurate updates. All those parties to some extent can pass that buck as they focus on their responsibilities. Most aren't customer facing so don't care to some extent.
We know exactly what's going on but there's only so many times you can apologise, especially if the original problem is solved and the new one (tug team gone home, huge ATC slot etc etc) is much worse.
I don't go into specifics for technical problems but will ask people to come to the flight deck if they have questions or are worried. You do end up looking like a tit though when the engineers run out of ideas and turn the plane off and on again with passengers still on board, after you've told them it's just a computer reset.
LNER train their guards on making PAs, judging by the fact they're nearly always clear, honest, and audible.
TFL also appear to teach their drivers but only to the degree of making any announcement late, inaudible, and completely unhelpful: "mumble mumble mumble red signal mumble mumble don't know mumble mumble service terminated mumble"
I work in bus, for us it’s because if it’s a technical fault the people who are customer facing (drivers, traffic controllers) have limited technical understanding so to them it’s a light has come on (not always as straightforward as that also) so until a mechanic arrives they can’t give further detail, when the mechanic does look at the fault it will take extra time for the mechanic to explain the fault in layman’s terms to the customer facing staff, who then have to avoid a case of Chinese whispers to explain to the customers (cue questions from customers, that they can’t answer) all this when the focus is on just sorting the fault so delayed is chosen, also sometimes it is difficult to give accurate time estimates, you think you can fix it in 5 minutes then it’s actually worse then you thought, having to break off and update adds more time and pressure.
I can only comment from an ATC point of view.
If its unsafe to let an aircraft get airborne, we won't let it. This really annoys the tower controllers but there is a phrase "a plane is safer on the ground". There are many reasons why this will happen but usually boils down to 2 types.
On a tactical reason, it's usually because the aircraft is unable to fly the standard departure route due weather. This may bring it into confliction with other departure routes or holding stacks. This is particularly relevant in congested airspace such as over London and the South east.
Strategically, too many aircraft flying a particular route can easily overload a sector which means controllers will not be able to manage the workload safely. To that end, departures or arrivals flying through that sector will be "flowed", ie instead of 30 an hour, only 20 will be allowed.
The tactical decisions are made on a minute by minute basis so there is no way to update the aircrew as to what and why the delay is for.
The strategic decisions are spread over a few hours worth of ATC management so still quite hard to effectively up date the aircrew.
I've been sat on a plane, on stand and the pilot has announced we've been delayed for ATC reasons. I've phoned work and they've told me there has been no such restriction imposed on our flight. Sometimes, shit happens.