"Capt. Doug" wrote
You didn't mention the reasons for their tardiness. I understand your
frustration, but am not quite ready to place all the blame squarely on the
airline.

That's irrelevant. When you sell something to a customer, and then
the customer doesn't get what he was promised, then it's your fault.
Even if you put somewhere in the fine print that he might not get what
he was promised, it's still your fault. That arrival time you print
on the ticket? That's a promise. If you have certain
suppliers/vendors/regulators who are known not to be reliable, then
it's your responsibility to either replace them or factor in the
unreliability into your schedules.

My flight yesterday (NOT for Scareways) started 4 hours late. Our plane was
delayed inbound for 3 hours because of flow control problems in Chicago. The
airline can't do anything about it.

Really? Were you shocked that there were flow control problems in
Chicago? How about mildly surprised? No? Is it maybe because the
airline has scheduled way too many flights to arrive and depart at the
same time from the same little patch of concrete, knowing there's not
a chance in hell that will work except under ideal conditions?

See, the airline CAN do something about it. It can schedule
realistically. If you know the airport can't possibly handle 200
operations in an hour except under ideal conditions, then don't
schedule 200 operations. Really, it's that simple.

In the meantime, a
police officer showed up at the cabin entrance and asked for a female
passenger to be removed. It turns out that the woman had assaulted her
intransigent teenage daughter while in the terminal.

While I'm certainly not making excuses for assault (there is no excuse
for assault) the fact remains that people are only human, and when
their plans are screwed up due to circumstances beyond their control
they get angry and frustrated, and some are prone to violence. And if
the scheduling had allowed for reasonable airport capacity, rather
than what you can get under ideal conditions, there probably would
have been no assault and consequent investigation.

I have little doubt that a few of our frustrated passengers may swear off
traveling with us again. On the other hand, I know that trips with such
frustration are the exception.

No they're not. In my experience, they're the rule. And I can assure
you that at this point, MOST of your frustrated passengers are only
flying because they have no choice (meaning as a condition of
employment) and many would be happy to see you all go out of business
so they could take alternate transportation.

I also know that traveling by personal
aircraft has it's own frustrations.

Yeah. Like just a few months ago I had a mechanical problem - right
engine starter bendix wouldn't engage. Takeoff was delayed by two
hours while I decowled the engine, cleaned out the bendix, and
reassembled. Funny, though - I didn't miss any of my connections,
didn't have to sit for hours in a tiny cramped seat, didn't have to
eat crappy food, and didn't tell my passengers how it wasn't my fault.

Michael